


Blast

by Mousedm



Category: Diagnosis Murder
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 04:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12598096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousedm/pseuds/Mousedm
Summary: An evening out turns into a night of terror for Mark, Steve, and the gang.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: “Diagnosis Murder” and the characters in it are owned by CBS and Viacom and are merely being borrowed for recreational and non-profit purposes. I promise to return them unhar...... OK, mostly unharmed.
> 
>  
> 
> This story was originally posted on Fanfiction.net (many years ago), but they removed the apostrophes from the formatting so it will be easier to enjoy here!

“Steve, are you ready yet?” The emphasis on the final word gave the tuneful enquiry a slight air of impatience as it echoed round the confining walls of the bathroom, and Steve gave a resigned grimace to the well-dressed reflection in the mirror.

“I’m coming,” he shouted back and, suiting the action to the word, he exited the bathroom and strode athletically up the stairs to the kitchen he shared with his father.

Mark, looking very distinguished in his own tuxedo, was checking his watch again rather blatantly, but his face softened at the sight of Steve. He took a few steps to close the distance between them, his hands going automatically to straighten his son’s tie, the obvious pride glowing in his eyes restraining Steve from following his first impulse to bat his father’s arms away irritably.

Mark’s words, however, were characteristically understated. “You don’t clean up too badly.”

“You’re looking pretty sharp yourself,” Steve retorted as Mark stepped back to admire his handiwork.

“Well, let’s get going,” Mark announced brightly. “We don’t want to be late.”

He suppressed a smile as the incredulous look on his son’s face clearly announced that at least half of their party would be delighted not only to be late but to miss the event altogether. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get home earlier,” Steve apologised somewhat insincerely, wishing he’d been able to legitimately extend his absence even further. “Things got busy,” he explained vaguely.

“I’m just glad you’re here,” Mark continued cheerily. “I was half-expecting a telephone call from you saying you couldn’t make it.”

“Dad!” Steve expostulated with grave indignation. “I said I’d be here. Besides,” he added after a beat, “the Captain kicked me out.”

This time his father’s grin was unconcealed as Steve continued with disgust, “He said my presence would be a credit to the department.”

“Maybe you’ll enjoy it.” Mark clapped his hand on his son’s shoulder, steering him deftly towards the door.

A snort announced his son’s opinion of that groundless optimism. “Well, at least you’ll get a free meal out of it.”

“There is that,” Steve brightened slightly. “I just hate wearing this stupid suit.” He extended his neck forward, then side to side, trying to stretch his collar enough to gain some freedom of movement, but these strange gyrations only made him look like an irate goose on the rampage. “It’s a good thing there’ll be doctors around to give me CPR once this thing has shut off my air supply.”

He continued to grumble, though, in truth, his dislike of formal wear and sententious speeches was outweighed by the pleasure of an evening in his father’s company. Even ceremonies like this could not be boring in Mark’s irreverent presence.

It was an election year and the mayor, casting around for favourable publicity to generate votes, had settled on a series of local dinners around Los Angeles to celebrate the work done by volunteers in the community. Steve had been “trawled into the net,” as he disparagingly phrased it, because of his services as a volunteer firefighter. Illustrating the random nature of the choices, Amanda had not received an invitation, although her contributions to the community were just as numerous and significant as those of Mark and Jesse who had been handed the neatly engraved cards by the hospital administrator. However, Amanda had accepted Mark’s request to be his guest for the evening, so all four of them would be present.

Mark’s own distaste for pomp and ceremony were overridden by his belief in the importance of the volunteer spirit and the boost it could gain by this public recognition.

Jesse’s new girlfriend, a young veterinarian who had been a regular customer at BBQ Bob’s, was accompanying him. Steve, on the other hand, had invested too much of his energy into finding a plausible reason to avoid the occasion altogether and so had missed the opportunity to secure a date, and his lack of female companionship, in contrast to father and friend, probably contributed to his less than agreeable mood.

Steve had always found the act of driving oddly soothing, the combination of speed and power satisfying both his need for recklessness and his conflicting desire for control. Motoring along the highway towards the city didn’t exactly compare to his racing career, but it helped him relax, and the jagged edges of his disgruntlement quickly melted in the warmth of his father’s company.

Mark was an entertaining conversationalist, regaling his son with amusing anecdotes from work, and also an attentive listener, allowing Steve to relieve some of his frustrations from an inherently stressful job, and by the time they had arrived at Amanda’s house, the detective had reverted to his customary good humour.

They were surprised to see Jesse’s car parked alongside Amanda’s, since the original understanding between them was that the young doctor would meet them at the convention centre.

“He should have cut and run when he had the chance,” Steve muttered, avoiding his father’s amused gaze by taking the steps two at a time.

Amanda greeted them at the door looking even more elegant than usual in a long evening dress and fashionable hair-do.

“The baby-sitter’s not here yet,” she explained apologetically. “Come in.”

Mark enquired after the boys and, on discovering they were playing with Legos in their bedroom, disappeared into the back of the house to join them.

Steve was mentally weighing the possible merits of volunteering to replace the errant childminder, when he was distracted from his speculations by the sight of Jesse sitting on the couch, neatly decked in black tie and with his hair combed into greater submission than its usual disorder.

Steve’s keen detective instincts grasped another pertinent fact. Jesse was alone. “Where’s Emily?” he asked with seeming casualness.

Jesse tilted his chin up, wrapping his dignity round him like a cloak or perhaps more like a shield to fend off the jabs he knew would be forthcoming.

“She had to operate on a Budgie’s beak,” he articulated precisely with a hint of challenge.

A quick glance at Amanda’s expression confirmed Steve’s suspicion, and a broad smile spread over his face. “She dumped you,” he said with relish.

Steve had taken enough flack from his friend for what Jesse termed ‘the train wreck of his love life’ to feel no compunction in teasing the young doctor. Jesse did not confirm the deduction, but neither did he deny it, merely casting around for a change of subject. However, Steve wasn’t about to allow his prey to escape so easily. Revenge was not only sweet, it was long overdue.

He shook his head in patently spurious sympathy. “That’s too bad. What was the problem - your job, your hours, your BBQ sauce...your height?”

Jesse’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Short jokes? You can’t do any better than that?”

“You shouldn’t have given her those flowers for Valentines. Women like something more permanent for a gift. It shows commitment.”

“Oh right. Like I’m going to take romantic advice from Lieutenant Date-a-Disaster.”

Steve had heard far worse and merely smiled back amiably.

Sensing that the two friends were settling down for a comfortable session of trading insults, Amanda attempted to throw the palliative oil of flattery on choppy waters. “I think you both look particularly handsome tonight. Any woman would be proud to accompany you to this dinner.”

“You’re quite right.” This unexpected affirmation from Jesse brought Amanda’s eyes around in surprise and Steve’s in suspicion.

“Well, look at him.” Jesse’s eyes were round with innocence as he pointed at his friend. “He should have girls draped all over him.” He paused allowing an expectant silence to fill the room. “Of course, they’d all have criminal records as long as...”

He dodged the first cushion, but was laughing too hard to maintain his defense, and the second hit him squarely in the face and he collapsed still chortling on the couch, his hair reverting to its accustomed state of disarray.

Amanda watched them in mock disgust and was about to make a disparaging comment on the idiocies of male bonding when the doorbell rang. The baby-sitter was verbose in her apologies for her tardiness, but Amanda soothed her ruffled feathers and, with a practiced check of dietary requirements, bedtimes and contact numbers and a final kiss for the boys, ushered her other charges out of the door.

The dinner was to be held in the ballroom on the tenth floor of the Omni Hotel in the business district. It wasn’t a particularly extended drive, but the traffic slowed to an aggravating crawl long before they could see their destination. 

“We could play ‘I Spy’,” Jesse suggested facetiously as they inched forward.

“Not if you want to live long enough to actually arrive,” Steve threatened casually from the driver’s seat.

“There it is.” Mark pointed to a building ahead, fourteen floors high and with an ornate facade that contrasted oddly to the stark, featureless exteriors of the office buildings that flanked it. In front of its rotating glass doors, cars were disgorging well-dressed passengers.

“I’ll drop you guys off at the next lights,” Steve informed the others.

Amanda leaned forward. “I’m sure they have valet parking,” she offered.

Steve’s, “I don’t think so,” was echoed almost immediately by Jesse’s equally trenchant, “No way,” and even Mark was shaking his head.

“What?” she exclaimed in exasperation at this esoteric male ritual.

“When this thing’s finished,” Jesse explained kindly, “everyone will pile out at once and it will take forever to get out of there.”

“So I’ll park somewhere else to speed things up,” Steve elaborated unnecessarily. “Here we are. Everyone out.”

Mark exited with a spryness that belied his age and opened the door gallantly for Amanda, offering her a hand. He stooped down to comment cheerfully through the open door, “Don’t be long,” before taking Amanda’s arm through his.

“I won’t, and don’t let Jesse eat all the food before I get there,” Steve called back.

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” Jesse shouted after the departing car.

As Steve drove off, the three friends joined the line that was waiting patiently to pass through the revolving doors. The sun had gone down, but its heat remained, baked into the concrete sidewalk beneath their feet and absorbed into the humid, heavy air that enveloped them. The formal clothes they were wearing exacerbated the sweltering conditions, and it was with considerable relief that they presented their invitations and finally entered into the air-conditioned refinement of the Omni.

Although it was cooler inside, the press of bodies crowding around the elevators radiated their own warmth, and the three friends steered away from the main group, keeping to the periphery of the plushly decorated atrium.

“I need to freshen up.” Amanda peered around over the multitude of bobbing heads for an identifying sign to the facilities, but the hotel appeared to be too elegant to clearly advertise such prosaic services. “I’m going to ask for directions. I’ll meet you two up in the ballroom.”

They watched her disappear into the crowd, slipping effortlessly through the congested lobby, then Mark turned to Jesse with a bright smile. “Want to skip the elevator and try the stairs?”

Jesse contemplated the prospect of trudging up ten flights of stairs. “I don’t think that would cool me down any,” he stated doubtfully.

“Elevator it is, then.” Mark towed his young friend into the slowly diminishing line seeking the quickest route to the upstairs ballroom. 

Mark had been a practicing physician and an active member of the Malibu community for so long that he knew a surprising number of people in the area, and Jesse was impressed by how many of the guests the older man could greet by name, asking after family members and general well-being.

As they emerged from the muffled confines of the elevator into the muted roar of the ballroom, an elderly lady accosted Mark with delight, her ample chest providing a display shelf for the jewelry dripping off her neck.

“Dr. Sloan, how delightful to see you here,” she trilled in a voice quite incongruous with her buxom size.

Mark smiled at her, bending gallantly over the hand she presented to him. “Mrs. Belmont, it’s lovely to see you. How are you?”

“I’m quite my old self now, thanks to you.”

“And how’s Trixie doing?”

“Oh, Dr. Sloan, you should see her. She’s bouncing around like a baby again. I can’t thank you enough. I swear you saved her life!”

Intrigued by this slightly incongruous but obviously heartfelt claim, Jesse couldn’t help but interject. “Trixie?”

“My Pomeranian,” Mrs. Belmont elaborated proudly.

“A dog.” Jesse attempted to keep his tone deadpan, but something of his irreverence must have crept through because he shortly found himself on the receiving end of two quelling stares, although he didn’t miss the sparkle of mirth that lurked in Mark’s eyes.

“Trixie is my baby and there is no other person I’d trust her health to.”

“Yes, Ma’am, quite understandable,” Jesse agreed meekly, although privately he was rehearsing veterinarian jokes for Mark’s benefit. “If you’ll excuse me, I see...some hors d'oeuvres.” He backed away hastily, heading for the buffet table. He felt a trifle guilty at abandoning his friend but any penitent thoughts he entertained were quickly banished by the more pressing problem of selecting food from the palatable spread in front of him.

He was pausing in front of the vegetables, conscientiously adding a few green beans and some broccoli to his already impressively laden plate, when he spotted Steve further down the line applying himself with equal enthusiasm to the process of ladling food onto his plate.

He sidled along until he reached his friend’s side. “Not a bad spread, huh?” he whispered, staring appreciatively at the offerings lying temptingly before them.

Steve spared him a quick glance. “It probably rates higher than the hospital cafeteria,” he mused judiciously, “but...”

“Not as good as Bob’s,” they finished in loyal concert and exchanged grins.

“There’s a price to be paid for this, you know,” Steve warned in an undertone.

“What?” Jesse looked around in confusion as if expecting to see a tip jar nearby.

“Speeches,” Steve explained in a sepulchral voice.

Jesse’s grimace of aversion exactly mirrored the detective’s own reaction and, balancing a slice of garlic bread perilously on the side of his plate, Steve backed away from the buffet, gesturing with a nod of his head.

“Let’s see if we can find a place near the back of the room. That way, we’ll be poised for a quick exit.”

They weren’t the first to act on that idea, but they did find an empty table that met their specifications. All the tables were round and seated eight, and Steve automatically positioned himself with his back to the wall, a location that furnished him with an unobstructed view of the whole room. Saving space for Mark and Amanda between them, Jesse took the fourth chair and applied himself to the serious business of eating.

Using his vantage point to survey the room, Steve soon spotted his father and Amanda balancing their own plates while searching for the missing members of their party and he waved them over.

“So, this is where you guys have been hiding,” Mark commented amiably, placing his food on the table and pulling the chair out from beside Jesse to politely assist Amanda before seating himself next to his son.

“Not hiding exactly, more like...sequestering,” Steve answered through a mouthful of scalloped potatoes.

“Not exactly under conditions of hardship, though,” Amanda observed with a pointed stare at their still-generous portions.

“We’ll need all our strength for later.” Jesse met her gaze earnestly and although Amanda suspected a trap from the sheer innocence in his expression, she couldn’t help but ask why.

Jesse looked around conspiratorially, and Amanda unconsciously mirrored his body language by leaning forward confidingly as he did. “Speeches,” he whispered in much the same tone as Steve had used earlier.

Amanda stared at him in disgust for a moment. “And this only just occurred to you?”

“Well, I didn’t think...I mean, I thought Emily was coming,” Jesse said plaintively as if that explained everything.

As if in response to Jesse’s verbalisation of the anticipated oratory, an ominous whine emanated from the loudspeakers and the noise in the room faltered and staggered to an uncertain halt as people gazed up at the figure on the podium with the microphone.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, as the manager of the Omni I would like to welcome you here tonight. I hope you are enjoying the food, and please feel free to help yourself to a fresh plate at any point in the proceedings. Now, without any further ado, I would like to present the mayor of this great city, Mr. Thomas Harrington.”

Steve joined in the polite applause as the mayor stood, nodding his easy acceptance to the acknowledgment, and made his way to the podium. He was a well-built man with the straight white teeth and slightly plastic good looks that one associated with politicians and B-movie stars in Los Angeles.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Harrington paused to grace the room with another glimpse of expensive dentistry, “I am honoured to be here tonight in the presence of the true heroes of our community...”

Steve gave a mental snort and turned his focus back on his food. He didn’t see himself as a hero; he merely did the work at which he was best. He was sure there were people in that room who did deserve that title, but the liberal bestowal of that appellation annoyed him, as it spoke of the unctuous flattery of political gain rather than sincere appreciation.

As the mayor’s oratory hit what appeared to be an inexhaustible stride, Mark leaned over to Steve and whispered, “I guess he’s never learned that less is more -- less talking equals more votes.” 

“No talking would certainly get my vote,” Steve muttered back. He lay down his fork on the empty plate with some regret and was contemplating returning to the buffet when a deep muffled thud sounded from somewhere below, and the building quivered like a wounded animal.

Silence this time was immediate and absolute, even Harrington freezing into the same intent, expectant stance as the rest of the room. It was the stillness of prey waiting for the talons of the hunter to close or the count after the pin had been pulled from the grenade.

The tableau remained fixed and motionless for a second that stretched into infinity, but it was Steve who broke it. Either from experience, training or prescience, he anticipated the likely sequence of events. With a shout of, “Get down!” he dove for Mark, dragging him off his chair and under the table and the shelter of his own body. He felt rather than heard the huge concussive blast that hurled the table away from them, but the sound erupted a heartbeat later in a monstrous boom and crunch as the glass exploded out of the windows. Everything was encompassed by a bright flare, then the lights failed and everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

The echoes of the explosion reverberated relentlessly through Steve’s head, brutal in their intensity as he lay stunned, balanced on the edge of unconsciousness. The muffled silence that followed was somehow indistinguishable from the noise, deafening in its quietness. There was no screaming, no talking, just nothing. 

It took his dazed mind a minute to realise that it was his hearing that was at fault as it cut in and out like sound from a faulty speaker. Gradually, he became aware of other people crying and moaning. He could taste smoke and powder. In fact, everything seemed to be covered in a heavy, smothering blanket of dust which lingered in the air and stole his breath.

He tried to move, but instantly regretted it as a hot, searing, almost intolerable, pain shot through his leg. His head was throbbing mercilessly in accompaniment, sharp spikes driving into his temples and behind his eyes. To complete his mental inventory of misery, he was bleeding. He wasn’t sure from where or how many places, but he knew from all-too-frequent experience the difference between blood and water, and the trickles were tacky and warm.

The pain had the benefit of sweeping aside the cloying remnants of dazed confusion and allowing the clarity of memory to seep back in. His first coherent thought was for his father, whom he discovered lying frighteningly inert beneath him. He fumbled awkwardly for a pulse, but even before he found the reassuringly steady beat, he felt the puff of breath on his hands and the first stirrings of movement.

Dizzy with relief, Steve decided that so far this experience was infinitely preferable to the last time a building blew up under his feet. Those hours ranked as probably the worst in his life as, ignoring the injuries he himself had sustained, he’d searched frantically through the ruins of Community General hoping that, by some miracle, Mark had survived. Even now, he discovered he’d fisted his father’s shirt in an unbreakable grip as if afraid Mark would vanish without the contact.

It also rather belatedly occurred to him that, although Mark might appreciate the protection he’d received from the blast, it might be counterproductive to suffocate him by remaining in the same position. He eased himself off, stifling an involuntary cry as he inadvertently discovered the source of at least some of his blood. There were several fragments, of what he wasn’t sure, impaled in his leg. Identification of their exact nature wasn’t possible, since the only illumination was a small fire flickering in one corner of the room.

Gritting his teeth, he plucked out the smaller pieces, but one fragment was substantial and defied such cavalier treatment. A mere touch feathered over its surface vibrated down the deeply embedded point, the pain expanding incrementally like ripples on a pond. He was aware that medical wisdom dictated he left it alone, but he also knew he’d be incapable of performing the essential tasks that lay ahead with it still protruding.

“Steve?” Mark’s voice emanating from the darkness was shaky, lacking its characteristic strength, and Steve hastened to reassure him.

“I’m right here, Dad. Everything’s going to be fine.”

The need to help his father and friends lent him resolution and, taking as firm a grip as the smooth surface, slippery with congealing blood, allowed, he yanked hard. 

A bright light exploded behind his eyes as pain fissured through him, the shock chasing down his spine. He grabbed a convenient napkin he’d found on the ground and tied it firmly around his leg, hoping it would stem the gory flow that streamed hotly from the wound. The dull roar in his ears took on the surging cadence of his heart beat, almost blocking out Mark’s renewed plea.

“Steve?” Fear was curdling into panic in that simple word, and he was moving in response before consciously aware of the fact, his own pain irrelevant in the face of his father’s distress.

With sudden intuition, he realised that not only was Mark’s hearing probably as compromised as his own so he’d missed his son’s earlier reassurance, but also that he was reliving the nightmare of the bombing of Community General. With typical emotional reticence, they had never discussed the events of that day. It had been sufficient that they had both survived relatively unscathed. Now, he had a sudden flash of insight into exactly how traumatic the experience must have been for Mark, lying in the ruins of the place he’d worked for so long, his son missing and Amanda severely injured, depending on him to keep her alive. 

He grasped Mark gently but firmly by the shoulders, assisting him in his efforts to sit up.

“Dad, I’m right here, take it easy.”

He wasn’t sure if it was his touch or his words that reached his father, but he could feel the ripple of recognition that changed to a wave of relief that swamped Mark as he slumped fractionally between Steve’s hands.

“Are you hurt, Dad?” he asked urgently, searching for some injury.

“I’m fine,” Mark asserted, though he didn’t sound too confident and, perhaps sensing that, he continued lightly, “Just a bit bruised. I feel like I was run over by a truck.”

“Actually, that would be me. Easy mistake to make.”

There was humor and affection in Steve's voice, dappled with a tremor of something Mark couldn't define but parental instincts assumed the worst.

“You’re hurt.” Worry made his voice gruffer than normal as, in the gloom, his fingers unerringly found the rivulet of blood that smeared his son’s face. 

“At the risk of sounding cliched, it’s just a scratch... or a bump, something trivial anyway.” He squeezed his father’s hand reassuringly, concerned by the cold, almost clammy feel of the skin. “Dad, just stay right here, I’m going to check on Jesse and Amanda.”

He wasn’t surprised when Mark ignored his suggestion to wait for his return and followed him, stumbling through scattered debris which ambushed their steps in the murky shadows. Steve could feel a dense storm of hot and charged emotions, fear and fury, inside him, but the exigencies of the situation demanded action, not reaction so he tamped them down with a struggle that only training and experience made successful. He had to concentrate, deal with one thing at a time, and his top priority at that moment was to find Jesse and Amanda.

“Jesse?” he hazarded uncertainly.

“Steve! Thank God!” Amanda’s voice was pitched higher than usual, wrung out with stress, but still instantly recognisable and, as soon as she spoke, Steve was able to discern her silhouette, solid black against the wavering darkness. He knelt beside her gingerly, grasping the hand she held out, mutual relief in each other’s survival teasing a slight smile from both.

“Is Mark...?” She broke off as she caught sight of the older doctor. “Thank God,” she repeated. “Jesse’s hurt. I think the table hit him, but I’m not sure.”

Mark was beside her immediately, following her gaze, the familiarity of his profession banishing the residual effects of shock. “Let me take a look.” ‘Look’ was something of a misnomer since it was too dark to rely on visual observation. After finding the regular, if slightly thready, pulse and reassuring himself that Jesse was in no immediate respiratory or cardiac distress, he started a tactile examination of his friend’s head to determine the cause of unconsciousness.

“He’s got a large contusion on the back of his head, although the skin doesn’t appear to be broken,” he reported. He continued to explore gently but carefully, finding nothing of concern until he reached his friend’s abdomen. Palpating the area, he found it too warm and hard to the touch. “There’s internal bleeding, probably splenetic. We need to get him to the hospital as soon as we can, but he’s in no immediate danger.”

He heard his son’s soft exhalation of relief behind him. “Dad, I need to figure out what’s happening, what help we can expect.”

“I need to organise triage,” Mark informed him. “There’ll be many other injured people here.”

“I’ll pass the word along.”

“And Steve, be careful.”

Mark watched his son start to move away into the gloom and, for the first time, a sudden flare from the fire offered him a glimpse of their corner of the room, bodies interspersed between tumbled furniture and fallen ceiling tiles underneath lights dangling from their electrical connections. He noticed Steve was limping and almost called him back, but a moan for help nearby caught his attention and the opportunity was lost.

Mark had worked under difficult conditions before, but this had moved past difficult into nearly impossible. The fire was quickly extinguished, leaving a smoky, consuming darkness that stole the breath and clogged the nose and throat while stealing his greatest diagnostic tool of sight.

Community General had provided compulsory seminars for all its medical personnel to become knowledgeable in all aspects of blast trauma, and Mark anticipated a range of injuries from pneumothorax, visceral injuries, fractures, blast lung, facial burns, concussions and contusions. There was a minor relief to be found in the discovery that most people were suffering from secondary blast injuries caused by impact with flying objects not the primary blast injuries, leading Mark to the conclusion that either low-order explosives had been used or that the bomb had not been as close to their room as it had originally appeared. He filed the observation away for later analysis.

Despite his intense focus on his patients, Mark remained peripherally aware of Steve’s progress around the room. With a natural talent for taking charge in a crisis, he was firmly but compassionately organising the dazed crowd, marshaling what resources they had and averting panic. 

Mark soon benefited from this capability as he was joined by three other doctors his son had located in the throng, although only one had surgical experience, and four nurses. Perhaps even more fortuitously, they arrived bearing two small flashlights. They proved capable of handling the steady stream of walking wounded that Steve directed towards them, utilising tablecloths and napkins as rudimentary bandages. Mark attempted to treat the more severely injured with Amanda’s help. He couldn’t help but recognise the irony that the doctor most capable of dealing with the rude conditions and possessing the best emergency medical skills was lying still and unconscious, and he desperately missed Jesse’s competent presence.

The blur of activity numbed Mark’s emotion, but when the building trembled again in the throes of an explosion deep below, a sinking, sick feeling gathered around his heart and trickled down to his belly. However, he merely instructed the young man holding the flashlight to keep it steady and finished tying off the dressing.

Suddenly, Steve was crouched beside him, his hand squeezing his father’s shoulder. “Dad, we’ve got to get out of here now. I’ve mobilised everyone even remotely ambulatory and found several strong bodies to help those who’re not.”

Mark took a deep breath, bracing himself, anticipating his son’s reaction to what he was about to say. “Steve, I can’t go.”

“Dad!” The one syllable was hackled with spikes of fear-induced anger, but Mark calmly overrode the protest.

“We have people here too badly injured to be moved without proper stabilisation.”

Now his son’s square jaw ground audibly. “Even I know that the first rule of first aid is to move patients to a safe location for treatment.”

“This place seems relatively secure.” Mark answered mildly.

“There’s bombs going off every few minutes. It’s a damn war zone! They’re not going to send in emergency personnel under these conditions. The bomb squad will have to secure the building first.”

“I agree with your assessment, and that’s why you have to get those people out of here, but I have to stay with those who can’t be moved and that includes Jesse and the mayor.”

“I’m not going to leave you here,” Steve grated out, but the harsh edge of desperation in the words told Mark that he had won the argument. However, the scent of victory afforded him no pleasure, since he was under no illusion as to the brutality of the dilemma he was forcing on his son, pitting one imperative against another.

“Protect and Serve” was no facile motto to Steve but a way of life. The ancient code of chivalry was so fundamental to his nature that it had to be indelibly inscribed on every gene in his body and to be compelled to choose between his need to safeguard his father and his desire to see everyone secure and out of the building was torturous.

Lit only by the dim glow of the flashlight, Steve’s face looked drawn, the clean lines gaunt and stark. Mark couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, but it was unnecessary because he could see his son’s jaw muscle jumping with barely suppressed emotion and feel the anguish of conflict transmitted through the rigid tension of the hand that still gripped his shoulder.

Fighting back his own remorse at the pain he was causing, Mark struggled to keep his own voice matter-of-fact. “You’re not leaving me, you’re going for help. There’s a big difference.”

It may have been true, but it was also a flawed argument, a mere camouflaging of unpalatable fact, and Mark knew his son recognised this deceptive garnishing. However, pragmatism dictated that there was only one choice, so Steve wasted no more time in futile wrangling. For a moment, his fingers pressed so deeply into Mark’s shoulder that the older man could almost feel the bitter conflict rending his son in his own bones. The next minute Steve shook his head, his eyes dropping away in obscure loss. 

“Okay.” His voice was void of emotion as he stood up, locking away his turbulent emotions with iron control. “I’ll be back soon.” 

“We’ve got seven badly hurt and three that didn’t make it,” Mark informed him.

As Steve turned away, the wavering beam of the flashlight showed him Amanda, holding Jesse’s hand, watching them intently. 

“Are you coming?” Steve asked her gently. “You’ve got the boys to think about.”

She shook her head with a serene smile. “I’m not leaving.”

“Amanda!” Mark’s involuntary objection died a premature death as he realised that any rationalisation he used to dissuade her from this course of action would weaken his own argument for staying and that it wouldn’t take much to tip Steve into an intransigent refusal to desert them. “Are you sure?” he finished weakly.

She was quietly adamant, and Steve accepted her decision with bleak resignation, moving away to gather his flock. Mark noticed that his limp was more pronounced, but it was too late to call him back, and he could only watch as Steve ushered the crowd to the door that led to the emergency stairway, now cleared of debris.

Fear feathered across him icily like light fingers of frost at the realisation that Steve would be descending through nine floors where bombs were still exploding at indefinite intervals, but there was nothing he could do for his son now, so he attempted to lock away that anxiety and focus on his patients, especially Jesse. Despite his brave words earlier, he recognised that their own situation was far from secure.


	3. Chapter 3

The cavernous ballroom echoed emptily in the absence of the crowd -- Dr. Ganesh, the surgical doctor, was the only other uninjured person who stayed. The sense of desolation only increased when the destruction was illuminated, so Mark kept his flashlight trained low. It was oppressively hot, but he told himself that it was due to the lack of air conditioning, which had apparently failed at the same time as the sprinkler system, not to any approaching fires. However, it was harder to deny the fact that the air, already laden with dust, now seemed thicker with the acrid tang of smoke. Not the best ambiance for injured men and women, yet attempting to lug their damaged bodies down ten flights of stairs would almost certainly be worse. It had been a judgment call fraught with uncertainty, a precarious weighing of choices all almost equally unsatisfactory.

Mark was used to making such critical decisions but now, feeling Jesse’s cold, clammy skin and weak, rapid pulse, he couldn’t help but second-guess his actions. He’d never forgive himself if Jesse died in this bleak room under his care. 

“How’s he doing?” Amanda’s soft voice echoed his own concerns. 

Jesse hadn’t fully regained consciousness, but stirred restlessly, his breath shallow and harsh. He settled at Mark’s touch, but there was no reassurance to be found in that stillness. 

“He needs to be in a hospital.” Mark swallowed painfully. “Maybe I should have...”

“Don’t, Mark. It was the right decision. Trying to transport him without a gurney would have exacerbated his injuries terribly. You’ve given him a better chance at survival. Steve will be back soon.”

As if to illustrate the contrary side of the argument, there was a now-familiar rumble, and the shudder that rippled through Amanda was mirrored by the movement of the building.

“What on earth in going on?” Anger and fear were mixed in turbulent proportions in her voice. “I’m sure a few well-placed charges would have brought down the whole building; why are they messing around with so many little explosions?”

“It seems to be standard procedure for terrorists now to set subsequent bombs to catch rescue workers who respond to the first explosion.” Mark was only too aware of this development and its consequences for the brave men, like his son, on the first response teams. Yet even as he spoke, his intuition told him there was more involved in this situation. He didn’t waste time trying to track down the source of this feeling. He knew from experience that his subconscious would mull over the puzzle, mashing it into its constituent parts and gnawing on them until the solution could be spat back out. 

For now, his main concern was whether Steve had been in the vicinity of the latest blast, the chances impossible to calculate since he didn’t know what path his son had been forced to take to evacuate the building.

“If that’s the case, do you think they’ll let Steve back in the building?” Amanda asked anxiously.

Mark’s laugh was genuine. “Do you really think anyone or anything could stop him? With the three of us up here there’s no power of persuasion or coercion on earth that would prevent him coming back for us.”

His confidence was more than justified by experience as Amanda could well remember. Steve had fought his way through storms, wildfires and even the LAPD to reach his father when Mark was in danger. Suddenly, the ten floors to the ground didn’t seem so far, and the thought imbued her with new courage. She returned his smile. “Then he’ll be back soon. I’ll stay with Jesse if you could check on Mr. Martin.”

Despite the optimism of his words, Mark thought there was a good chance his son’s return would be delayed, perhaps considerably, both by bomb damage and by the injuries in the large party he was escorting, so he was pleasantly surprised when, only a few minutes later, the pounding of multiple footsteps on the stairs announced Steve’s arrival just before the emergency door burst open.

“Dad, are you all okay? How’s Jesse?” Mark caught sight of his son’s silhouette just before he was blinded by a bright light shone unerringly straight into his eyes. 

“Oops, sorry,” Steve continued, as his father ducked away, raising his arm to block the offending glare.

Mark attempted to blink away the huge coronal starburst that remained in his vision. “Jesse’s holding on, but I am so glad to see you. You made great time. Any problems?”

“None to speak of,” Steve reassured him in too airy a tone to be totally convincing. “However, things are fairly...” there was a pause as he searched for an appropriate word, “...crazy outside, so there was a dearth of volunteers for this job. We’re going to have to do this in shifts. We can only take four this time.”

Considering they were being asked to enter a burning building where bombs were exploding at unpredictable intervals, Mark felt it was more surprising Steve had found as many volunteers as he had, and he was grateful for their courageous altruism.

Mark’s eyes watered again as two emergency lights were switched on, their illumination scattered hazily by the plethora of particles in the air. They also offered him, for the first time since the explosion, an opportunity for a close scrutiny of his son. There was pain and fatigue etched into his grim expression and, beneath the grime of sweat-encrusted smoke, a bruise was starting to darken along his right jaw and cheekbone. 

His previously pristine tuxedo was torn and soiled past redemption, although Mark imagined his own would scarcely past muster at a high-society party, but more worrying was the conspicuously lateritious colour of the piece of cloth tied around his upper leg. He was determined not to let Steve out of his sight this time before checking out his injury, but, for now, his first priority had to be the administration of the rescue effort.

“Take Jesse,” he instructed, making a quick decision, “and that lady there and those two.”

Despite his turn-around speed, Steve had evidently taken the time to plunder more than one ambulance, and his spoils included everything from saline bottles and IV lines, to bandages and even an external defibrillator. The volunteers were clearly experienced, and the four injured patients were being efficiently stabilised and loaded on the emergency stretchers.

This enabled Mark to maneuver his son to one side. “Let me have a look at your leg.”

“It’ll keep, Dad. We don’t have time for this.”

“Then don’t waste time arguing,” Mark returned amiably. “If you lose much more blood, you’ll be more of a liability than a help in transporting these people.”

Yielding to practicality, Steve nodded acquiescence. “Just make it quick.”

“Oh, I got an ‘A’ in the expeditious bandaging class at medical school.” Mark flourished a pair of scissors from the first-aid kit and cut through the blood-soaked material. He couldn’t hide a wince as a four-inch gaping laceration was exposed. “Damn it, Steve. This needs stitches and soon.”

He didn’t have the equipment or time to properly clean and debride the wound, necessary preliminaries to sutures, so, as a temporary measure, he slapped on a pressure bandage and tied it up as tightly as he dared to stem the blood flow that still oozed sluggishly. Task completed, he sat back on his heels, rooting around in a mind devoid of inspiration for an argument, or simple words, that would convince, cajole or even guilt his son into staying outside when he next reached safety.

“Thanks, Dad.” Steve flexed his leg experimentally, the brief respite from exertion more than welcome as every heartbeat pulsed a sharp stab of pain through his thigh. He watched anxiously as Jesse was transferred with the utmost gentleness to a stretcher, but also kept a peripheral eye on his father, turning back to him expectantly as Mark cleared his throat. The older man's eyes were shadowed, tension radiating off him, and Steve could hazard a likely guess as to the direction of his concerns.

“Steve, when you get to the ground, why don’t you accompany Jesse to the hospital. One of us needs to be with him.” Mark kept his voice casual as if it were an inconsequential request.

However, the blue eyes that met his were warm with amusement and understanding. “That’s a good idea, Dad. However, if you don’t come with me to remind me, I’ll probably forget.”

Mark abandoned the subtle approach. He reached out and wrapped a hand around Steve’s wrist in an effort to convey his urgency. “Your leg needs medical attention and soon. It’s not going to help anyone if we have to carry you down too.”

“You won’t have to.” It was said with certainty and carried conviction. Mark was familiar with his son’s seemingly inexhaustible stamina in a crisis, but he also knew the damage that could be inflicted by that refusal to accept his limits.

As the irresistible force glared at the immovable object, the father recognised the kindred trait of stubbornness in his son with a sigh of acknowledgment.

“We’re all set to go, Doc.” For a moment they had been an island, separated from all the activity, but another voice cut through the stalemate.

Trying to convince his son had been an exercise in futility, but Mark hoped that Amanda would be more amenable to reason. Like Steve, she seemed to anticipate his request.

“I don’t want to leave you alone, Mark.”

“I’m staying. He won’t be alone.” Dr. Ganesh put it stoutly.

“One of us has to go with Jesse. Please, honey.”

His relief at her reluctant acquiescence was boundless for all of thirty seconds as the injured were lifted up, but as the group moved towards the emergency exit, that comfort was sucked away in a whirlpool of eddying dread as he realised that, before they could reach safety, the three people who meant the most to him in the world would have to traverse the gauntlet of ten floors of potential death.

At least part of that trepidation must have been evident in his expression since, as Steve glanced back at him in concerned farewell, he came to an abrupt halt, forcing the man at the front of the stretcher to stop as well. Mark dredged up a reassuring smile and waved him off before his son could replace the patient on the ground and return. 

Steve wavered uncertainly, clearly not convinced that he should leave. Across the smoky gap, he probed the dark blue gaze that met his, conveying without words a complicated algorithm of trust, love and an unwavering promise.

“Go...Just, be careful.” The words barely made it out of a throat so tight that Mark honestly thought he’d choke if he tried to say more, but his son’s eyes steadied him, offering him the strength he needed to turn away back to his patients, allowing Steve to leave.

Even after the sound of footsteps had died away, the vision of his son in the doorway remained burned onto his retina as fresh as if he were still standing there. Mark set little stock in precognition, open-minded enough not to totally discount the paranormal, but preferring to trust the observable, so he told himself that it was fear, not a premonition, that insisted that it was the last time he would see his son. Yet the cold fingers of foreboding scratched incessantly in his guts creating a hard, aching knot of pain in his stomach.

As he attached an IV line to one of the remaining patients, he found himself straining to hear any signs of his son’s progress, but also bracing himself for the next explosion. It was now oppressively hot, but the presence of light helped to relieve the former closeness of claustrophobia. Sweat trickled acidly into cuts and abrasions he didn’t know he had, stress and exhaustion on top of the bump he’d received earlier were causing his head to pound unmercifully, and every muscle in his body seemed to be aching wearily.

His gaze was drawn to the other doctor nearby who was working on one of the remaining patients.

“How’s Mr. Mahoney doing?” He kept his voice low, the echoing emptiness of the room forbidding a louder utterance.

Dr. Ganesh wiped his face with his sleeve, looking as tired as Mark himself felt. “His blood pressure is falling. We need to get him to a hospital soon.”

“Steve will be back in a few minutes.” It was more of a mantra than a simple statement, an incantation to ward off the presentiment of doom that plagued him.

There was silence for a moment as each man contemplated the optimism inherent in the words, then the young Indian gave Mark a rueful smile. “You know, I had expected an evening of extreme boredom, not...this.” His gesture encompassed the devastation surrounding them.

“You mean not intense terror, punctuated by life-and-death decisions?” Mark asked dryly.

A tentative smile acknowledged the truth of the comment. “I didn’t even want to come. My dad persuaded me that it was a great honour to be invited and that I shouldn’t refuse.”

A sliver of guilt stabbed Mark. “I said more or less the same thing to my son,” he confessed. For a moment he imagined Steve safe at home, having successfully procrastinated enough to miss the dinner. However, the fantasy quickly collapsed under the weight of its own fallacy. “The irony is that he’d probably have ended up here anyway, doing exactly what he’s doing now. He’s a cop and a volunteer firefighter.”

“So, just another day at the office for him, huh?” Ganesh quipped nervously. Watching the older man’s reaction, he continued softly, “But you’re still real worried about him.”

Mark looked up in surprise; he’d thought he was keeping a better guard on his expression, yet he couldn’t deny the accuracy of the observation. Worrying was an inescapable part of parenting, but he often felt he’d cornered the market on that activity. He’d long since accepted that his son’s innate sense of justice, integrity and protectiveness made the job of a policeman a perfect one for him, so he kept his reservations to himself. But at times like this, when Steve was actively in the line of fire, his attempts at equanimity tumbled down inside him like a flimsy house of cards, leaving only the fear that lodged in his chest, waxing and waning but invariably present.

“It comes with the territory.” The words came out as controlled as he could make them, uncomfortable as he was exposing his innermost nightmares to a virtual stranger.

“It shouldn’t take them long...”

Both doctors started and ducked involuntarily as a heavy, deep roar overhead like a crack of thunder signaled another bomb going off on the floor above them. The dull, rumbling reverberated through the walls and shook the ground beneath them. One of the emergency lights tipped off a chair, its illumination extinguished in shattering glass, and an ominous cracking in the ceiling alerted them to a new danger.

“Move the tables, now!” Mark’s first thought was for his patients lying helplessly on the floor. That flimsy shelter wouldn’t help if the building collapsed around them, but he was incapable of standing by passively, waiting for the end. Coughing as the exertion pulled dust into his throat, he dragged one of the dining tables over two of the injured, peripherally aware of Ganesh mirroring his actions nearby, shielding the third man.

Harsh grating pierced Mark’s eardrums, a sound that held a quality of sinister finality that turned his blood to ice; then, with a tremendous crash, the ceiling caved in on other side of the ballroom and a burst of hot air swept through the space like a miniature tornado. He shut his eyes against the terrifying onslaught, his heart pitching over in his chest as he waited breathlessly for the remaining part of the eleventh floor to cascade catastrophically down and bury them. 

Mentally, he transmitted an apology to his son. Their final wordless communication had contained an implicit promise on both their parts to survive, to make it through this ordeal. He knew that if he died, Steve would never forgive himself for leaving his father, and the bitterness of that regret ate corrosively at his gut.

The frequency of alarming creaks diminished, but any relief he might have experienced over the relative stability of the ceiling overhead was eradicated by the muffled roar of the fire above them and the thickening of the smoke. The flames through the hole caused the shadows to shift and flicker frantically and it was clear that they had scant minutes before the blaze spread to their level where it would rip through the room, fueled by the neatly-carved wooden panels that adorned the walls.

“We’ve got to get out of here; get them into the stairwell,” Mark yelled, the volume of his shout competing with the incessant din of the conflagration. 

He peered around in the gloom for a possible method of conveyance, hoping for a table top or something equivalent that would minimise the damage caused by transportation.

“Chairs or tablecloths?” Ganesh was obviously following his line of thought and offered the two choices, both unpalatable.

Another split-second decision. “We’ll move Mr....”

“Dr. Sloan!”

Mark spun around, the sight of brawny rescuers filing through the door a balm to his tired eyes. “We don’t have much time. Get them on the stretchers quickly,” he ordered with terse urgency.

Experienced enough to assess the situation without delay, the firemen wasted no time on questions, but sprang to complete the task as expeditiously as possible. There were six of them in all, two for each patient, but someone was conspicuous by his absence.

“Where’s Steve?” Mark tried to keep his voice casual but, since he could think of no innocuous reason for his son to have failed to arrived, it was impossible to stop the fear that spread like a toxin through his body.

Nothing would have kept Steve out of the building while his father was still inside so either his injuries were worse than they had at first appeared or some other catastrophe had occurred en route. The firemen were too intent on the process of evacuation to respond to his question, so he knelt beside the man who’d first entered the room, tugging him round insistently.

“Please! My son, is he all right?”

What he could see of the man’s face behind the mask looked oddly yellow in the strange light and also momentarily annoyed by the aggressive interruption. However, Mark’s palpable apprehension quickly softened his indignation. “He’s fine, Doc. Some kid was stuck in an elevator down below and he went to help.”

“Oh,” Mark responded weakly, relief robbing him of his customary eloquence.

Another portion of the ceiling gave way with a splintering crash, dumping burning debris on their level.

“Time’s up, guys, let’s move it,” bellowed the leader.

Mark cast a final glance around the room, relieved beyond measure to be leaving its confines. But, with the advent of hope and the proximity of safety came a corresponding fear that it would be snatched away by the vagaries of fate.

The air in the stairway was clearer than that in the ballroom, but it was still smoky and difficult to navigate, although glow strips on the stairs and handrails helped considerably. Mark’s eyes were watering, and an incautious breath caused the onset of a paroxysm of coughing. He grabbed the railings as he stumbled, his knees weak with strain and lack of oxygen.

“Dr. Sloan, are you okay?” The fireman couldn’t spare a hand from the stretcher he was hauling, but he paused in concern.

Mark managed a tentative nod, striving to find the air to force out a question. “I’m fine, but I was wondering. What if Steve effects his rescue and decides to come up here looking for us?” His hoarse voice was barely intelligible, but the younger man understood.

“Then he’d bump into us. There’s only one route he can take, so we’d definitely meet him. Don’t worry about him, Doc.”

Mark nodded, not attempting to articulate his relief, but saving his breath for the struggle onward. He was glad that their exit took them downward because he doubted that he could have forced his leaden limbs up against gravity.

They caught up with the other rescue workers and Dr. Ganesh on the fourth floor, and the fire fighter took a moment to explain. “We can’t continue down this stairwell any further. An explosion earlier filled it with debris. We have to cross over to another set of stairs here. Luckily, the water suppression system is still functioning at this level.”

The sprinklers may have been working, but the lights were not. As they plunged into the turgid darkness, lit only by narrow beams from the rescue workers’ helmets, Mark’s already deep appreciation for his son’s courage surged even higher. Not only had Steve forged the original route through the doomed building, but he had also voluntarily reentered not once, but twice. 

The hallway seemed like an endless tunnel, damp, black, forsaken by all except their group, but harbouring obscure menace. At first, his eyes searched for some indication of a bomb and his ears strained for the telltale ticking of a timing device, but his body simply couldn’t maintain the level of energy it was pouring into adrenaline and cut it off, leaving him feeling lethargic. Oxygen deprivation drove out fear, leaving only the instinctive drive to move forward. 

He scarcely realised when the corridor gave way to more stairs. Awareness only started to dawn when comparatively cool and fresh air filled his lungs and gloom was supplanted by a blinding brightness. For a moment, he wondered if enough time had elapsed for it to be daytime, but he quickly recognised the harsh glare of artificial light. A blanket was thrown over his shoulders and an oxygen mask fixed around his mouth, and he was led unresisting to a triage area.

He answered the questions perfunctorily and submitted to a quick examination, but all the time his eyes searched around hopefully for the unmistakable figure of his son.

The scene was oddly familiar and yet starkly alien. The flashing lights from the full spectrum of emergency vehicles dominated the setting, austere and ominous, casting the livid colours of chaos onto the faces of the onlookers. He was acquainted with the uncomprehending shock illuminated there having seen it far too often in his career. Although the injured had been transported to the hospital, most of the guests had nowhere to go, their vehicles inaccessible, and were sitting in groups of huddled misery, too stunned to comprehend the good fortune of their escape.

The police maintained a cordon and restrained curious bystanders and ghoulish reporters at a respectful distance. EMTs ministered to those hurt, and firemen, clearly visible in their yellow uniforms and helmets, attempted to retard the flames that leapt from the higher floors. Yet, in that seething mass of humanity, Mark was unable to spy his peripatetic offspring and renewed unease crawled through his veins, chilling and noxious, a parasite that infested every cell, draining hope faster with every passing second.

With a surge of adrenaline-fueled determination, Mark forced himself to his feet, assuring the medics that he was fully recovered from the smoke inhalation, and since they’d discovered no injuries save a lump on his head and some bruises, they allowed him to leave with the admonition to arrange a follow-up examination with his doctor. 

While sitting still, his muscles had stiffened up, and he limped slightly as he hurried over to a group of people whose damp appearance suggested an encounter with the sprinkler system. Someone had to know where Steve was, and if he had to question every single person present, he would find that information.

“Have you seen my son, Steve? He’s about six foot two, with light brown hair and blue eyes.” The words should have become rote after the fourth or fifth time of asking, but repetition only imbued them with greater urgency as Mark’s anxiety increased. 

“He was the man who led the guests off the tenth floor.” Many people remembered Steve’s leadership with deep gratitude and expressed their thanks and admiration, but no one knew his current whereabouts and each negative scattered fire and ice through his gut. He didn’t have to wait for the shake of the head but could anticipate its arrival as the expression on each face slid from distracted helpfulness, through uncertainty, to an embarrassed pity.

Finally, it was a fireman who pointed out the family whose little girl had been stuck in the elevator. They were sitting slightly apart from the other guests, protectively huddled around the seven-year-old child. The tracks of tears were discernible on her face as she nestled against her mother, but she looked peaceful, the trauma already dissipated. Her parents watched his approach incuriously, numb with their own relief, and he envied them that tranquility.

He squatted down in front of them, his anxiety obscuring the pain of that maneuver, and summoned up a smile that felt so brittle it would shatter if he tried to maintain it for more that a few seconds.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he began carefully. “My name is Mark Sloan and I believe that my son, Steve, helped to get your daughter out of the elevator earlier.”

The man’s face lit up. “Of course,” he cried out enthusiastically, holding out his hand to pump Mark’s. “I can see the family resemblance. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to your son. He was amazing, just so competent. I’m William, by the way. This is my wife, Amanda, and my daughter, Ann.”

He babbled on, charged with the kinetic power of adrenaline released, while Mark waited with barely concealed impatience for him to take a breath, then jumped smoothly into the breach. “I’m so glad that Ann is doing well, but I hope you can help me now. No one seems to have seen Steve since he brought you out of the building. Do you have any idea where he went?”

William’s mouth remained hanging open for a split second, then closed with a snap as he looked over to his wife for help, but her expression was as blank as his own. “I’m so sorry. We were so wrapped up with Ann, that we didn’t... I didn’t, well, pay any attention...I’m sorry.”

“He was hurt.” Amanda suddenly chimed in, blushing slightly as Mark stared at her intently. “I mean, he was bleeding...” she waved a hand vaguely in illustration, “... and he was obviously exhausted.” Her cheeks turned an even deeper red and it was evident, at least to Mark, that his son had made quite an impression on her. “I think he might have gone to the paramedics,” she finished hopefully.

Mark seriously doubted her conclusions but it was worth trying, so he thanked the family politely, sensing their anxious eyes on him as he moved away. He was oblivious to the voluminous purple blur zeroing in on his position until a shrill cry alerted him to the incoming dynamo. “Dr. Sloan! Oh, thank goodness!”

He almost recoiled from the bizarre sight confronting him. “Mrs. Belmont, I’m so glad to see that you’re not hurt.”

Her mighty bosom heaved under the constraint of strong emotion which, considering her evening dress had taken on slightly transparent properties when damp, made for awe-inspiring viewing, and her normally immaculate hair swung bedraggled around her face, yet the force of her personality remained undimmed.

“I was so worried when I heard you were still in the building. You were so brave to stay. I have to admit, I’ve never been so relieved to get out of anywhere, but now I just want to get home to Trixie. Do you have any idea when we can leave?”

Mark had tuned out her chatter, still visually scanning the area for Steve, but he dragged his focus back as he realised she had asked a question. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m rather distracted. I can’t find my son, Steve. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him recently?”

If he’d been watching, he’d have seen her face turn from dawning comprehension to dismay. Her hand darted out to catch his arm. “Yes.” The words came out breathlessly. “I’m so sorry. I saw him being taken away in an ambulance.”

“What?” She now had Mark’s complete and unswerving attention.

Mrs. Belmont met his gaze anxiously. “He seemed to be unconscious as they carried him into the vehicle.”

It made perfect sense in explaining Steve’s absence. Mark knew that his son would have come back for him if humanly possible, but Steve’s injuries had obviously been worse than he’d originally thought. Relief at finally narrowing down his son’s whereabouts and a contradictory renewed concern for his well-being fought for supremacy.

“Thank you.” Mark took the time to express his sincere gratitude, although every fibre of his being strained to leave, to follow this fragile lead to his son. “I’ll call you later.”

As he strode towards the EMTs, his eyes searched for any familiar face. He knew most of those who worked with Community General, and there was a good chance he’d find someone willing to help him.

He greeted the first man he recognised. “Mike, how’re you doing?”

“Hey, Doc.” The large medic looked up from the leg of the patient he was bandaging and took in Mark’s appearance with one raised eyebrow. “You were in the hotel, Doc? You hurt?”

“I’ve already been checked out, I’m fine. But it seems that my son, Steve, was taken to a hospital.”

“Can’t help you there. We’ve been taking them to Community General and Mercy and the worse of the burn vics to County.”

“I really need a ride to Community General. My son drove us here and, even if I had keys, I have no idea where he parked.”

“No problem, Doc. You look like another check over wouldn’t go amiss. Hop in the back and when I’ve finished up here, we’ll take you both over.”

To Mark’s surprise, he dozed off on the drive, a testament to his level of exhaustion, since the squat vehicle did not offer a smooth journey. It was only a short nap, but remarkably refreshing and probably helped contribute to the feeling of optimism Mark felt as he passed through the emergency doors to be cocooned within the familiar walls of Community General.

He deflected the copious concerned inquiries with a smile, responding with his own anxious questions, but no one was able to provide the information he needed. 

He found Amanda in the nearest Doctor’s lounge. She’d found the time to change her clothes, but exhaustion and worry wilted her usual jaunty posture and carved lines into her beautiful face. However, on seeing him, the furrows of anxiety erased themselves in beatific relief.

“Mark, thank God!” She crossed the room quickly and enclosed him in a heartfelt hug which he returned warmly, patting her comfortingly on the back when she seemed disinclined to release him.

Finally, she stepped back, still gripping his arms and shaking him slightly in mollified irritation. “Don’t ever do that again. I’ve been out of my mind with worry, not knowing if you’d made it out.”

She swiped at her eyes as Mark guided her to sit beside him on the sofa. “How’s Jesse?” was his first question, but Amanda shrugged with frustration.

“He’s in surgery, but I haven’t heard anything since he went in.”

Mark nodded, disappointed but unsurprised. “Amanda,” he grasped her hands as they lay clenched together in her lap. “Have you seen Steve?”

“What? No!” She looked at him in alarm, reading the gravity of the inquiry in his expression. “He was with you. What happened?”

“I don’t know, but I heard he was taken by ambulance to one of the hospitals, I don’t know which. I don’t even know his condition.” The fear that he’d been successfully suppressing suddenly surged up, coursing violently through him like water through a blowhole. 

“I have to find him.” He jerked to his feet, the uncertainty driving him back into action.

“Mark, wait. You can’t wander round the hospital like that.”

He had to concede the point as he glanced down at his bloodstained, torn, smoke-soiled shirt. 

“Go and clean yourself up and change your clothes,” Amanda encouraged. “I’ll start making some phone calls and meet you at the front desk in half an hour.”

“Give me ten minutes,” Mark reluctantly compromised.

The shower would probably have felt luxurious if he’d been able to appreciate it, but his mind was wholly occupied with fears for his son as he worked through possible scenarios that could have led to an unconscious Steve being rushed to the hospital. 

Restored, at least externally, to normal, Mark strode mechanically through the corridors, his footsteps speeding up as he neared his rendezvous with Amanda, hoping that she would be the bearer of good news. However, as soon as he turned the corner and saw her, it was clear from her expression that she had nothing auspicious to share.

He listened to her end of the uninformative telephone conversation before she replaced the receiver after a final ‘thank you’. Her eyes met his, puzzled and dark with burgeoning agitation.

“I can’t find him. He’s not here and he’s not at Mercy.”

“He was unconscious...maybe they just haven’t identified him.” Mark grasped for straws as the numbness of panic tingled in his extremities.

Amanda shook her head. “There are no John Does that fit his description.” She decided not to mention the fact that at least the morgue hadn’t seen him either, since she didn’t want to introduce that concept into the discussion. “I’ll try County. He has to be there.”

Mark withdrew to the window trying to isolate the loose pinball of thought that was ricocheting around his brain and sparking blinking lights of panic as it passed. He was missing something -- a fragment of conversation, an expression, a piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit.

In a split second of awareness so intense he could feel his clothes dragging at him, the dust motes buffeting the air around him, a trigger tripped, a tumbler rolled and pain swept through him, like a gale-force wind, knocking down things he'd thought were rock solid.

Then his knees buckled and he gripped the wall to prevent himself from sliding to the ground, as his heart pounded painfully in his chest and his breath came in shaky, uneven gasps, as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.

“Mark!” Amanda was suddenly by his side supporting him, her concern vibrating through her fingertips. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Mark struggled to find the words to explain his insight, each one acid in his throat as it emerged incoherently. “It wasn’t him. She didn’t know and she thought it was Jesse. Oh my God, Amanda, I left him there; he’s still in the building!”


	4. Chapter 4

Amanda stared at Mark, stricken, the meaning of his last words clear even if she couldn’t follow his reasoning. The raw pain in his expression staggered her, and she could see how hard he was trying to maintain control through his fear and exhaustion.

“I don’t understand,” she faltered. “You said...”

Mark closed his eyes as anger and guilt threaded sharply in his guts before erupting through his chest in a torrent of fire and ice. “How could I have missed it?” he berated himself. He tried to explain himself more coherently. “Mrs. Belmont is a long-standing patient of mine. I asked her if she’d seen my son and she told me he’d been loaded into an ambulance, but it was a stupid question. She’s never met Steve. When I’d bumped into her earlier at the dinner, Jesse was with me. She must have thought he was my son.”

Amanda could easily believe that. The ease between the two doctors, coupled with Jesse’s affectionate deference to the older man, would make such an assumption easy. Strangely, it was often harder to recognise the father/son consanguinity between Mark and Steve. Their relationship was infinitely more complex, the connection between them deep and unbreakable. They were best friends, brothers, each as capable as the other of slipping into the protective, more paternal, mode.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Amanda protested, almost automatically, unable to watch the uncharacteristic vulnerability Mark was displaying that only extreme danger to his son could generate.

“I should have realised at the time,” he maintained. “Dear God, I left him behind.” The confession was spoken in the deepest anguish, tearing at him so profoundly it was as if he were being rendered open.

“You can’t be sure of that,” Amanda argued desperately. “There’s no reason to believe he’s still in there.”

Logically, she was right, but every instinct Mark possessed insisted it was the only possible explanation. “Where else could he be? I’m sorry.” He patted her hand absently. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. We’ve looked everywhere else.”

Amanda stared at him, at a loss for words. She had been inside the Omni and was aware that if Steve had entered the building and failed to return, his prospects for survival were bleak and deteriorating by the second.

Mark pushed himself stiffly away from the wall. “I’ve got to go back,” he muttered. “No car...have to take a taxi.” He started walking down the hall, staring blindly ahead.

“I’m coming with you,” Amanda stated with determination, lengthening her stride in an attempt to catch up, but Mark shook his head distractedly.

“No; I could be wrong, and we need to cover all our bases. You head over to County and look for him there.”

“But, Mark....” She broke off, unable to think of a tactful way of phrasing her insistence, afraid to voice her suspicion that Mark would need her there if his supposition was correct. “Do you have a cell phone? I need some way to contact you if I find him.”

“That’s a good idea, honey, but I don’t know what happened to mine.”

“Mine’s in my locker. It won’t take us a minute to pick it up.” She urged him along.

The doctors’ lounge was occupied by two interns staring intently at the television in the corner, and Mark froze as recognition of the scene filtered through his preoccupation. A blonde reporter with one hand pressed to her ear to cut down on ambient sound and a professionally grave look on her face was standing in front of a police barricade. “...No bombs have exploded recently, but the death toll remains unknown as fire rages unchecked through the building, and emergency personnel are forced to stand by helplessly. Now back to you, Bill.”

With brutal abruptness the screen cut from the chaotic heartbreak of the streets to the bland regularity of the studio where a clean-cut anchor with an earnest expression sat at a desk. “The people of Los Angeles are waking up this morning to the sad realisation that their city has been the target of a horrendous terrorist attack. A group calling themselves ‘American Dawn’ has claimed responsibility, declaring that...” he shuffled the papers, pretending to read from one in an effort to distance himself from the proclamation. “... ‘Los Angeles is the heart of a morally bankrupt nation and the mayor its symbolic head. Last night, we struck to surgically remove this cancer which is destroying the innocence of our youth and draining the strength from our great country.’”

The anchor threw down the paper with a dismissive gesture. “However, our sources report that the terrorists failed in their avowed goal. The mayor survived the brutal attack, albeit in critical condition, and is currently under guard at Our Lady of Mercy hospital. We now go to our reporter there.”

Mark’s paralysis was broken as the cold smoothness of a cell phone was pushed into his hand. Startled, he looked down into Amanda’s concerned eyes. “It’s wrong,” he stated involuntarily.

“I know, it’s wrong, stupid and horrible,” she stated vehemently, gazing back at the screen.

He didn’t try to correct her misunderstanding of his sentiment. “I’ve got to go. Call me if you find out anything.”

The taxi ride back to the Omni was the longest Mark had ever experienced, each minute unutterably valuable, but hopelessly fragile, scouring his nerves as they slipped past him ticking off the heartbeats of Steve’s life if he was indeed trapped in the building. His monosyllabic responses quickly squashed the driver’s desultory attempts at conversation, but the ensuing silence left his mind free to imagine the worst in agonising detail.

In an effort to assuage his feelings of helplessness, he attempted to call first Steve’s captain and then Chief Masters in the hopes that apprising these men of his son’s whereabouts might help, but he was unable to reach either of them.

About half a mile from the Omni, traffic slowed to a crawl as police detoured vehicles around the area, and the sluggish pace soon grated unbearably so Mark called out a preemptory order bringing the taxi to a halt. He handed the driver some money and, without waiting for change, headed off down the sidewalk, the physical exertion alleviating the worst of his impatience. He pushed past other pedestrians with scant ceremony, good manners in abeyance, driven away by his need to reach his son. 

The air was still and close, retaining much of its heat from the daytime and it added to his feelings of claustrophobia as the crowed thickened, pressing in on him restrictively as he neared the hotel.

A curious miscellany of humanity, from nattily dressed business men to tatterdemalion indigents, ebbed and flowed through the streets as the original tidal surge of curiosity towards the scene of tragedy abated and the satiated were replaced by new onlookers, maintaining a susurration of speculation that filled the night. Mark fought his way to front of the crowd, shouting out his medical credentials as a verbal snow plow. 

For a minute, he feared the police would not let him through, but his documents, coupled with his authoritative deportment, won him passage. The explosions had forced the perimeter of security to be established at a distance from the hotel so it wasn’t until he turned a corner that he was afforded his first real view of the Omni. He faltered to a halt, horrified. 

Flames fully engulfed the upper half of the building, flaring hotly through the windows despite the water trained on them. A terrible tightness gripped Mark’s chest, and the air around him felt thick and impossible to breathe, as if he were suffering a bizarre flashback to the conditions in the ballroom. After that recent experience, it took no stretch of the imagination to picture his son’s fate if Steve remained in the building.

Time melted into a slag heap of confusion; Mark never knew if he stood staring for hours or merely seconds before an instinct deeper than survival propelled him forward with increasing momentum. A cry rang out from the right, but everything except the crackle of flames had faded away, blurring into insignificant white noise so when his progress was suddenly and jarringly arrested, he uncomprehendingly struggled to escape from restraining hands.

“What the hell do you thing you’re doing? Are you crazy?” an irate voice demanded, recalling Mark to his senses. 

Realising that to continue on his present course wouldn’t help refute the latter charge, he forced himself to stand still. “My son is in there.” He swallowed to keep the waver from his voice.

“What? Where?” All sets of eyes turned involuntarily towards the tongues of flame licking ravenously around the roasted frames of the upper windows.

“I don’t know exactly,” Mark was forced to admit. “But he’s in there somewhere.”

“Hey Doc, what’s up?” 

Mark recognised the approaching figure as the fireman, Seaton, who had led the final rescue effort, and he appealed to him eagerly. “My son, Steve, is still missing. No one’s seen him since he retrieved the little girl from the elevator, and I’m absolutely sure that he reentered the hotel.” He couldn’t bring himself to explain that his own presence in the building would have ensured Steve’s return, but it was impossible to delete the nightmare image of his son fighting his way through the inferno in the tenth floor to be overcome by the smoke in the deserted room.

“I understand that must be very worrying,” Seaton responded sympathetically, “but there has to be another explanation. No one has ventured inside since we came out, and I told you that we’d have bumped into him if we’d been there at the same time.”

“Not if he’d been waylaid by someone else needing help on another floor,” Mark pointed out. He struggled to sound rational, but urgency was pulling him apart at the seams, and he could feel himself fraying at the edges.

“I don’t think so, Doc. One way or another, we’ve accounted for pretty much everyone in the building.” The firefighter hesitated then continued steadily, his tone gruffly compassionate. “Besides, I hate to say it, but you have to know there’s really no hope if, by some chance, he is inside.

It was one thing to suspect the worst theoretically, but quite another to hear an objective source confirm it. Ice slid through his veins at the words, but he couldn’t give up on his son even if everyone else did, and the ensuing wave of frustration threatened to swamp him. “You don’t know that. We have to try. Please!”

He had no pride where Steve’s safety was concerned. He was willing to beg, lie or cheat if it would achieve the desired result. But there was no softening in the expressions of the men around him. “I’m not asking for anyone else to risk their lives; just let me go.” Desperation bled through every word, although his voice was low, scraped raw with pain.

“I’m truly sorry, Doc,” Seaton told him with sincere regret, “but it would be tantamount to suicide, and I know your son wouldn’t want that.”

Mark could tell that any further insistence would not help his cause, but might possibly endanger his freedom, so he dropped his head in feigned defeat, hiding the stubborn defiance in his eyes. “Don’t tell me what he’d want. He deserves better than this.” He allowed himself to sound hard and raw, as bitter as the night. Yanking his arm free, he stumbled away. It wasn’t hard to fake exhausted resignation. His body ached from trying to contain his brittle anguish, anger, fear and loss.

He slipped out of sight as quickly as he could, heading unobtrusively to the back of the building. There had to be another entrance that was less well guarded. It occurred to him to wonder why nobody had attempted to stop Steve from returning inside and the answer to that hit him like a bolt of lightening, blasting his whole nervous system as, suddenly, he grasped what was happening, the whole game plan opening out in 3D in front of him. Engrossed in speculation, he started as Amanda’s cell phone broke out into the raucous tones of “The Entertainer,” singularly inappropriate for the occasion.

He patted his pockets methodically until he discovered the source of the offending noise. “Mark Sloan here.”

The reception was fuzzy, but he recognised Amanda’s dulcet tones. “Mark, I’m at County, but there’s no sign of Steve here. Any luck your end?”

“No,” Mark admitted grimly, “but I think I’ve figured out what’s going on. I don’t have time to explain now, I have to find a way back inside the Omni.”

“What? Mark! You can’t be serious.” 

Mark closed the phone decisively on his friend’s dismayed expostulations, switching the ringer over to vibrate while trying to look officious and authoritative for the two cops regarding him curiously from behind a cordon guarding a maintenance door. “I’m Dr. Mark Sloan.” He flipped his ID over for their perusal. “We’ve got an injured firefighter inside and I’ve been called in to help.”

“No one’s supposed to be entering. It’s too dangerous with the bombs and all,” one of the men stated dubiously.

“That applies to the general public. Now, there’s a man dying in there and I can’t waste any time, but feel free to check with your superiors.” The ring of sincerity that adorned the words was unmistakable, and Mark marched unimpeded to the entrance. Without a pause, he grasped the handle and threw open the door. Entering a burning, exploding building probably didn’t rank in the top ten list of sensible activities performed by sane people, but he was going to find Steve... if it was the last thing he did.


	5. Chapter 5

Of all the difficult, distasteful, and truly heartrending tasks Steve had been required to perform in his life, leaving his father in a potentially lethal position had to be the worst, and he’d been forced to do it not once but twice that night.

As he reentered the building for the second time, he had high hopes for a speedy reunion and a safe exit with his father in tow. But fate quickly intervened, casting a small but irrevocable monkey wrench in his well-laid plans.

The repeated tramping up and down ten flights of stairs had left the muscles in his damaged left leg twitching and jumping with pain. His limp was now pronounced, and he feared he was slowing the group. He had only made it this far through the numbing graces of endorphins and adrenaline, coupled with a sheer bloody-minded determination.

As they climbed past the third floor, Steve was almost knocked off his feet as the hallway door swung open violently, expelling a distraught man. Pushing his glasses up his nose in dazed comprehension at the sight of them, as if he feared they were a smoke-induced hallucination, the newcomer panted, “Oh, thank God. I thought everyone had gone. My daughter, Ann, ..she’s trapped in the elevator. Please help me!”

With a clarity of insight that twisted his guts into a painful knot of frustration, Steve realised that he had to be the one to stay behind. As much as every impulse in him craved a return to his father, both to reassure himself as to Mark’s well-being and to escort him safely out of the building, ultimately his father’s safety was the only thing that mattered and his own injury made him more of a liability than an asset to the group.

“I’ll go,” he gritted out harshly. He caught Seaton’s eye with a compelling gaze. “Get my father out!” It was a plea and a command wrapped up in a heartfelt prayer. Entrusting Mark’s life to another man was bitterly unpalatable.

“Will do.” With that laconic acceptance of the charge, Seaton handed Steve a fireman’s axe and, with a final nod, continued up the stairs. There was a quiet, solid competence about the man that provided reassurance, and Steve yielded to the compelling tug on his sleeve.

In the dark hall, the flashlight picked up the moving figure of William Nelson, and Steve hurried to catch up with him. It wasn’t nearly as smoky at this level, but he knew that any impression of safety was purely illusionary. The elevator was situated in a small alcove where a small woman was kneeling next to the closed doors, her face, upturned to greet them, pale and tearstained.

“I’ve got some help,” William explained joyfully, then yelled down in the direction of the shaft. “I’ve got some help, sweetheart. We’ll have you out soon.”

“Thank you so much!” The woman’s gratitude was effusive. “We didn’t know where she was. There was an explosion, the lights went out, and we couldn’t find her anywhere. Eventually we heard something from the elevator, but it seems to be stuck between two floors...”

“It’s okay,” Steve interrupted soothingly. “We’ll have her out before you know it.” The worst of the tension drained from her, and she managed a tremulous smile in response.

Steve’s confidence was justified. With training and the proper equipment, it wasn’t a difficult task. He forced the outer doors open easily, then used the axe to lever open the inner doors. He peered down the shaft cautiously, aware that the unexpected shifting of the elevator car could result in amputated limbs or even decapitation. However, it seemed unlikely that power would be restored any time soon so as the roof of the car was only a couple of feet below him, he lowered himself down gingerly. Even still, the shock of impact on his injured leg momentarily robbed him of breath. 

The escape hatch on the top of the car was fastened with a padlock, but a precise blow with the axe removed that obstacle. He pulled open the hatch with both hands, and it clanged back against the roof, the sound echoing alarmingly in the enclosed space. 

Involuntarily, he glanced up the shaft, his headlamp illuminating thickening swirls of smoke which mostly concealed the heated glow of orange flames at the top. It looked disconcertingly like the upside down maw of hell, and the thought of his father caught near the center of that holocaust caused his heart to slam against his ribs.

“Damn it,” he whispered savagely, then resolutely turned his attention back down, calling out, “Ann, my name’s Steve, and I’m a fireman. I’m coming down to get you right now.”

He sat on the edge of the hatch, smoothly lowering himself to the extent of his arms, wanting to avoid jarring his injury a second time. Bracing himself, he dropped the final few inches, absorbing the shock on his good leg. The care of that movement was unavailing as what felt like a sizable cannonball hit him and clung, sobbing.

He reached down automatically and scooped her into his arms where she felt considerably more insubstantial, tremulous and damp pressed against his shoulder. He could imagine how terrifying her confinement in that dark, lonely space must have been and squeezed her gently in comfort. “Hey, sweetheart, it’s all over now. You’re safe. Your mom and dad are just up there waiting for you. I’m going to boost you up and I want you to climb onto the top and wait for me, OK?”

He felt rather than heard her nod of assent and kept up a litany of encouragement as he lifted her up and she scrambled with little effort out of the hole. The cries of delight from above and the small jolt of the car told him she hadn’t followed his last directions and was now safely in the arms of her parents, but he didn’t blame her.

With the rescue portion of his mission accomplished, Steve became aware of the extent of his own exhaustion. His muscles quivered with aching fatigue as he eyed his route of egress with resignation. What normally would have been an easy task for his athletic prowess now seemed formidably strenuous. Summoning all his reserves, he jumped, his questing fingertips just finding the edge of the hatch, then, inch by trembling inch, he hauled himself up and out onto the roof of the car.

He wanted nothing more than to lie there quietly and give his starved lungs a chance to draw in air, but three worried faces peered down at him, so he gave them a smile that seemed to have become his default setting and denied any weariness or stress. “OK, let’s get out of here.”

The young girl was still enveloped in her parents’ arms, the family forming an octopedal huddle of encompassing limbs, but as Steve held out a hand to speed the disentangling process, she trustingly reached back, and he lifted her up in the most comfortable position to expedite their speedy exit. He maintained as fast a pace as he could without allowing haste to deteriorate into a panicked run.

They emerged into the artificially lit night to be greeted by ragged cheers, the celebration of life triumphing over the horrors of the evening, but Steve ignored the acknowledgment, concentrating only on the termination of his responsibility to this family. He needed to follow the dictates of his heart, drawn to his father’s location like a needle quivering to the polarity of his own internal compass.

He handed Ann over to the waiting paramedics and, with all eyes fixed on the little girl, ducked unobtrusively out of the makeshift tent that housed the temporary first-aid station. He had taken barely two steps towards the hotel, when, as if summoned from the depths of his worst fears, the shock of another bomb blasted through the night.

As everyone else ducked for cover, Steve stood transfixed by the fireball that shot out of several windows, oblivious to the sprinkling of glass shards that fell around him in a coruscating shower, facets catching the myriad sources of light. Luckily, most of the glass had been blown out by previous explosions and little remained to be dislodged.

A sharp slice across the forehead broke Steve’s brief paralysis, and suddenly his feet were pounding towards the building, the pain in his leg obscured by the blunt knife of fear that burrowed its way through his guts. He hadn’t stopped to count floors, but if the blast hadn’t been in the ballroom, it had been close.

His headlong rush remained unabated as he entered the building, and he was tearing through the lobby when the light on his helmet picked out the familiar yellow of a fireman’s coat. He stopped abruptly in the quickly aborted hope that the rescue group had escaped ahead of the explosion. The two men, in the process of dragging something through a small door, were unfamiliar to him, but represented the assurance of help to counterbalance the sour disappointment that enveloped him.

“This way,” he called out crisply. “We’ve got some civilians and a recovery team trapped on the tenth floor.”

In normal circumstances, his detective instincts would have immediately clued him into something aberrant about their behaviour, but he was too focused on his goal for even blatant irregularities to register. He was already moving away when the lack of response infiltrated his consciousness, and he turned back impatiently. “Come on!”

A furtive, uncertain glance between the two strangers enlightened him, and the sudden realisation sent a bolt of adrenaline searing through his system. The transition back to a cop mentality was too precipitous for him to complete it successfully. He was conscious both of his father waiting for his help and his own complete lack of armament so, for a long moment, he stared at the fake fireman blankly, unable to think of a way to gracefully extricate himself from the situation.

They were clearly as unprepared to meet resistance of any kind and watched him warily. “Okay, I’ll get going,” he announced lamely. “You can follow when you get the chance.”

A dismissive wave of his hand tried to attach finality to the statement as he turned around, aiming for a speedy exit without making it look like an escape, but his back itched with the expectation of violence.

“Hold it right there,” a gruff voice instructed. Steve eyed the three feet between him and the door with frustration, contemplating a quick rush, but since it opened towards him, his instincts told him it would be suicidal. A glance over his shoulder showed him two menacing guns with gleaming silencers at the muzzles that announced their business-like intentions.

He raised his hands appeasingly. “Look guys, I don’t care what you’re doing here.” He was almost surprised to find that it was true; he had more important concerns at that moment. “I’m not going to interfere in any way. I just want to help the people injured upstairs.” He edged backwards as he spoke, hoping to take advantage of the indecisiveness he sensed, but a meaningful wave of a gun stopped him.

Their main disagreement seemed to hinge on whether to dispatch him on the spot or to take him hostage and let the ‘boss’ decide on his disposal. Steve waited for a decision, unable to summon up much concern for his own well-being, but too aware that every moment he was delayed could be fatal for his father. Dark fury stirred beneath the calm exterior he was presenting, rolling like a building tremor near the surface of the earth’s crust before the final explosion. 

He hoped that one of the two men would stray close enough for him to unleash that mounting frustration, but he couldn’t allow his impatience to force him into a premature strike. His greatest advantage lay in the element of surprise -- their ignorance of his proficiency in self-defence and familiarity with weapons. The odds weren’t great, but with a smidgen of luck going his way, it would work. But it had to be soon. Soon. The tension of urgency coiled tighter within him, inciting him to action but, with an exercise of will, he waited.

The final consensus seemed to favour at least a temporary stay of execution and, to emphasise his harmlessness, Steve exaggerated his limp as he was ushered towards the nondescript door he had previously noticed. His hardest job was to batten down his anger, to appear defeated, and not to allow the strain of imminent rebellion to be signaled in his demeanor. 

The man who had argued for Steve’s immediate demise was steering him from behind with a hand on his prisoner’s left shoulder and the gun poking him menacingly in the back, a rookie mistake that not only betrayed his exact position but also incidentally left him unable to notice the resulting gleam of satisfaction in Steve’s eyes.

This door opened outward, affording the opportunity for which he was hoping. Anticipatory adrenaline flooded his system, charging his muscles with suppressed anger. These men were responsible for the pain and fear inflicted on those he loved, and he wanted to exact some measure of revenge. His head felt light as suddenly starved lungs struggled to draw in enough oxygen to fuel the pounding of his heart, and a faint sheen of sweat prickled suddenly sensitive skin.

Now! The message was transmitted to every nerve instantaneously, and he sprang into action, spinning around and out on the ball of his left foot, his left arm battering away those of his would-be captor. A loud crack from the opposite wall indicated that the weapon had been discharged, but the bullet had come nowhere near him, so Steve ignored it, a large step carrying him almost behind his opponent, where he hit the man solidly in the kidneys while, almost simultaneously, kicking the door violently. A satisfying thud and shout of surprise attested to a short reprieve won in that direction.

With a smooth shift of direction, Steve threw all his weight behind a devastating uppercut which snapped his opponent’s head back and sent him reeling, the gunman’s skull impacting violently against the door, which handily accomplished both his descent into unconsciousness and the final slamming shut of the door.

For a moment, everything was still as Steve stared down at his former assailant. The tremble of reaction hit, and his hand shook as he bent down to pick up the gun. He tried to plan his next move, but what had once seemed so straightforward was now infinitely more complicated. Not only did he have to navigate exploding bombs in a burning building, but he was also being hunted by a man intent on shooting him, a man who was on the side of the door where Steve wanted to be standing. Should he explore the hallway he currently inhabited in the hopes it might lead to a path upstairs, or should he take the shortest route to his father and risk getting shot?

Fairly sure that the building was served by only the two stairwells (and the inoperative elevators), his choice seemed predetermined. There had been no sound from the other gunman that might indicate he knew Steve was now armed and had, rejecting the new, less favourable odds, had done a bunk, but more likely the gunman had taken up a defensive position and was ready to plug the first person to show himself.

Steve, however, had considerable experience protecting himself in a firefight. Before he went anywhere, he needed to move the crumpled body of his former captor. He approached him cautiously, confirming that his apparent state of unconsciousness wasn‘t faked, before tucking the gun into his belt, requiring both hands to drag him clear of the door. 

He only got a split second warning that something was wrong -- not even a shadow, but a disruption in the intensity of the light informing him he was no longer alone. He twisted round, drawing the gun as smoothly as if from his usual holster, and that movement almost certainly saved him from instant death, but it was too late to preempt the hail of bullets that peppered the door through which he’d been trying to exit.

A smashing blow on the ribs spun him around, driving the air from his lungs and depositing him on the ground, his newly acquired weapon dropping from nerveless fingers. The shock temporarily held pain at bay but, more cruelly, it didn’t dim the knowledge of failure, the realisation that his own inevitable death was almost certainly dooming his father too.

He squinted down the murky corridor at the approaching figure, fighting back the gray haze that lapped at his consciousness. Pain seeped through cracks in the barrier of shock and, with at first a trickle then an increasing roar, broke through that protective barrier, dissolving it into dust and swamping every nerve ending.

His breath stuttered to a temporary stop as the lifting of his ribcage stabbed white hot agony in his side, but he gritted his teeth against the groan that struggled to break loose from his throat and glared defiantly at the gunman who now stood by his feet staring down at him in cold amusement.

“You a cop?” There was a trace of an accent in the harsh tones, maybe East European, but Steve couldn’t place it with any accuracy.

He waved a bloodstained hand vaguely at his disheveled, barely identifiable clothing. “Do I look like a cop?” His voice was tight with the effort of forcing himself to breathe through the pain and weaker than he would have liked. “I was a guest at the mayor’s shindig this evening. There’s people still stuck on the tenth floor and I was trying to get to them when Moron over there and his friend, Pinhead, decide to stick a gun in my ribs and crash the party. I declined their invitation.” A sideways glance showed him that Moron had caught the brunt of the firepower discharged in their direction, but the newcomer seemed unconcerned that he’d killed a member of his own team.

“Civilians don’t fight like that.” Suspicion accompanied a threatening wave of the weapon.

“Army...long time ago...Vietnam.” Steve allowed his eyes to slide shut, not sure why he was still resisting, although innate stubbornness refused to let him quit. If his father was dead... Suddenly the image of Mark’s face as he’d last saw him superimposed itself on the back of his eyelids, the intermingling of fear and trust in his expression clear even in the murky light of the ballroom. And that was reason enough to keep fighting even if there was no energy left in him to continue to struggle.

He allowed the last memory of his father to fan the dying embers of his strength, then fed the resulting glow with anger at his own stupidity in discounting the possibility of danger from another direction. Whatever plan the bombers had in mind, their callous disregard for life was self-evident, and the man standing over him was more than a cypher in the vicious plot. The sure knowledge of the gunman’s responsibility acted like the puff of a bellows on his intensifying rage, igniting his resolve into explosive action.

A swift sideways roll was simple in execution, but its result was satisfyingly dramatic as one foot swept backwards, hitting the gunman at the bottom of the shins, the other, in a scissor movement, caught him in the back of the knees, propelling him forward, the muzzle of the gun flying upwards as the bomber attempted to break his fall.

Steve’s only chance lay in an expeditious conclusion to the melee, and he followed up his temporary advantage with a flurry of blows. However, his opponent was large and tough, not as easily dispatched as his previous adversary and, despite the desperate attempt at resistance, Steve’s own condition was entirely too vulnerable to withstand the retaliatory punches that soon came his way. A fist thudding into his already injured ribs shot spears of white-hot agony through his whole body, sending orange flames shooting up to obscure his vision, so he missed the gun as it slammed into the side of his face. The blaze exploded into tempera red before fading into numbing black, but the now familiar recognition of failure was as bitter as the metallic taste of blood in his mouth as he slid into unconsciousness.

He couldn’t have been insensible for more than a few minutes, but he discovered, as he struggled instinctively into a defensive position, that it was long enough for his hands to have been bound behind his back. The strange combination of limited movement and sticky inflexibility suggested that duct tape was the agent of restraint. 

A rough hand jerked him upright and he blinked furiously in an attempt to interpret the blur that comprised his field of vision. 

“So, cop, should we be expecting any more interruptions from your colleagues?” He recognised the voice and his own wallet as it swam into focus. Denial of his profession was obviously no longer an option since his ID was contained within. He couldn’t decide whether answering in the positive or negative would most benefit his odds for survival so he opted for a scowl and a thickly uttered, “Go to hell!”

“Just shoot the bastard, Benak!” Familiar tones informed him that his former adversary from beyond the door had successfully reunited himself with his team mate and had switched over from his previously more charitable position to its bloodthirsty converse.

“Oh, I don’t think so. If the police have figured out our plan we’ll need a hostage.”

“And if they haven’t?” Steve was interested in the answer to that one himself.

“Then I have more interesting plans than shooting in mind for him.” The words were mildly spoken but with a serrated edge of implacable malevolence. “Meanwhile, he won’t give us any more trouble.”

Benak squatted down beside his incapacitated prisoner, affording Steve a satisfying view of his bloodied, probably broken, nose and the fresh bruising marring the smooth planes of his face. That gratification was short-lived as Benak hefted what looked like a denim backpack and, with chilling intuition, Steve knew what it contained. The gunman passed one loop over his head, then two straps around his body. The pain of the brutal contact against his injured side robbed Steve of his first inclination to head butt as a sign of his displeasure.

In confirmation, Benak fondly patted the package that now rested on Steve’s chest. “This is a bomb,” he stated with relish, withdrawing a cylindrical object from a pocket. “And this is the detonator. If you try to run away or fail to keep up, that’s no problem. It’ll be just one more explosion to discourage further intervention. It’s your choice.”

If, at that moment, Steve had been able to reach the detonator, he would have taken great satisfaction in blowing the charge and taking the bombers out with him, but even that Pyrrhic victory was denied him. Both men turned their backs on him and started down the corridor, leaving him no option but to struggle to his feet and follow.

Blood soaked his shirt and the top of his pants, spreading down to join the existing stain above his thigh. A quick cataloguing of his new injuries informed him that he had probably been hit by three bullets, although all the damage was relatively peripheral. One had merely cut a deep furrow in his arm, a second had ricocheted off his side, almost certainly cracking a rib in the process, but it was the last wound that would give him the most trouble. The projectile had penetrated above his right hip bone and presumably exited somewhere in the back, contributing generously to his already debilitating blood loss. 

Yet none of this damage occupied his thoughts. His skin crawled in horrified awareness of the threat literally hanging round his neck. With each step, he had to suppress the terror that tried to claw its way up from inside, while the pain of loss clung to him like a second skin, itching and moist.

His hands fought for give in his bonds as he stumbled down the hall, and he swore he would prevent them from achieving their objective even if it required detonation of the bomb and himself to stop them.


	6. Chapter 6

As the door closed behind him, Mark realised the magnitude of the mistake he’d made in not bringing some form of illumination. The lobby seemed dark and impenetrably smoky, but he knew he’d pushed his luck in forcing an entrance, and he’d definitely be prevented from reentering if he left now for a flashlight.

However, as he paused uncertainly with his arms outstretched to feel his way, his eyes started to adjust and he realised that enough light was filtering in from outside so that the murky shapes of walls and furniture were visible. If he actually knew his final destination, navigation would be possible, but he had only a vague idea of what he was searching for, and his next step seemed as obscure as his surroundings.

He shut his eyes in an effort to visualise the layout of the lobby. It was almost impossible to believe that only a few hours ago it had been teeming with finely dressed people twittering in anticipatory excitement while silvery chandeliers bathed them in a brilliant glow. The contrast with the present couldn’t be more marked. However, despite his age, Mark had an excellent visual memory, which had served him well in both his official occupation and in his less than sanctioned pursuit of solving murders. He could envision the locations of stairwells and elevators, but the press of bodies had concealed the subtle architectural details even if his subconscious were inclined to remember.

The silence was so intense that it assaulted his eardrums, isolating him from the furor outside. He moved hesitantly across the center of the space, his gaze constantly shifting and appraising, knowing that what he was looking for had to be on one side of the building or the other. Urgency sharpened his senses, and the dimmest of glows in a far corner dragged at his eyes. For a moment, he thought it a reflection from the emergency lights outside, but, with a jolt of discovery, he realised that the regular shape described the outline of a door backlit by some form of illumination.

Since all the electricity in the building had failed, this artificial flare held considerable significance, and Mark barked his shins on two unidentified objects hurrying across to investigate. Tentatively, he touched the door handle, checking for a source of heat, but as a strange irregularity caught his attention in the gloom, his hand strayed further up. His finger sank into a round but jagged hole, surrounding splinters catching on his skin, but he was oblivious to the pinpricks of pain, too intent on the portent of the recently hewed bullethole. It offered verification of his theory, yet its existence boded ill for his son’s safety, and this time Mark’s hand trembled with dread as he gently eased open the door. A soft lustre spilled through the gap, but after swinging free for several inches, the door stopped abruptly, and a more insistent push suggested the presence of something heavy and slightly yielding behind it.

Mark’s imagination conjured up an identity to match what he correctly determined was a body, and his heart slammed against his ribs in horrified panic as he forced himself precipitously through the opening. One glance afforded him some relief, as he stared down at a stranger clad in fireman’s yellow, whose narrow features were marred by the passage of a bullet, rendering it unnecessary to check for a pulse. 

He was unsure if the man was an innocent bystander or was complicit in the assault on the building, but he wasted no time contemplating the role of the corpse since a glance around the area revived his original fears for Steve’s well-being. The corridor was a war zone, the walls chipped and pockmarked by the impact of bullets; the dark smears adorning them were unmistakably blood even in the caliginous light.

Mark’s stomach tightened painfully at the stark desolation of those stains. Steve was unarmed and injured and, as such, far more likely to be the source of the bloodshed than its cause. The spatters and smudges of blood left a trail that required no skill no follow and, with little thought given to self-preservation, Mark proceeded down the path it indicated.

He passed an emergency lamp that had provided the illumination and entered what was clearly a maintenance area. A multitude of pipes emerged from a series of huge tanks and faded into the darkness, but the room was eerily silent, only the occasional faint gurgle, like the grumble of an empty stomach, echoed weakly before being swallowed down into cavernous stillness.

Metallic grey now hid the copper sheen of drying blood, but Mark’s footsteps didn’t falter. What had started as a hunch had graduated into a certainty, and he knew exactly for what he was looking. Ducking behind a large cylindrical container, he found a hole blasted through the wall. He’d long suspected that the auxiliary bombs had served the dual purpose of keeping rescue workers out and camouflaging explosions necessary to the true goal of the night’s activities. The talk of terrorism had been a masquerade, a credible story to cloak the robbery that was taking place without fear of police intervention.

He had no idea what made the adjacent building such a prime target for invasion, and there were no clues offered by the stark walls or linoleum floors as he clambered through the hole. However, the renewal of bloody smears left no doubt as to which direction to follow. He was beginning to wonder if it was intentional, that they were intended as the gory equivalent of bread crumbs for lack of anything more tangible, but his speculation was curtailed as the faint cadence of voices reached him. 

The corridor offered no possibilities for cover, so if he proceeded forward he would be totally exposed if the faux terrorists reversed their steps, yet there was no hesitation in Mark’s stealthily advance. He placed each foot noiselessly, his ears straining for clues as to what he could expect and hoping desperately to recognise Steve’s tones amidst the desultory mutterings and purposeful shuffling in the room at the end of the passage. 

Sweat and adrenaline spiked as he neared the corner, and his breath sounded harsh to his own ears. He recognised the insanity of essentially bearding a gang of killers in their den, but their presence offered the only explanation for his son’s disappearance, and that bleak uncertainty forced him on through the awareness of his own recklessness.

Flattening his body against the wall, and doing his best to ignore the slight stickiness of blood he encountered there, he cautiously peered into the room, keeping his movements slow and hopefully inconspicuous. Almost immediately he saw Steve, sitting slumped against the opposite wall, his arms restrained behind him, and Mark’s heart bounded joyfully before sheering off to plunge vertiginously as he assimilated his son’s condition. 

For a few horrifying seconds that seemed more like an eternity tumbling in a free fall of despair, he thought he was too late. Steve’s boneless sprawl, head lolling limply as he reclined in an abandoned heap, was reminiscent of too many corpses he had seen. The whole world dimmed into darkness except for the very center of his vision, and it wasn’t until he caught the shallow movement of his son’s chest, the gentle flex of ribcage almost concealed under a shapeless corduroy bag tied around his neck, that the terror fraying at his mind relaxed its grip.

He drew in a ragged gulp of air and scrubbed a trembling hand across his face. He shook in odd places, his body a sudden archipelago of nerves, the aftermath of shock seeping through him. Every instinct he possessed, both medical and paternal, demanded he go to his son. Steve’s injuries were obviously severe. The blood on his face was a stark contrast to his pale complexion and his previously white shirt was now a dirty crimson which matched the ominously spreading pool under his right hand. Although he was still breathing now, it was clear that unless the blood loss was halted and he received timely medical treatment, this would not remain the case. 

Despite the urge to move forward, Mark retained enough sense to realise that to enter the room would almost certainly doom them both. He was Steve’s only hope for survival and, for now, that involved calling for help; but at the thought of leaving his son even temporarily, his heart clenched so hard it felt like his entire chest was collapsing. It might be the only logical thing to do, but it tasted painfully like betrayal.

A sudden burst of movement from inside the room, voices exclaiming excitedly, forced a decision and, with a last anguished look at his son’s still body, he retreated back up the hallway. His body felt leaden, as if gravity itself were protesting his direction and dragging him back. The brown rusty colour besmearing the walls now spoke to him eloquently, summoning up vivid images of Steve, badly hurt and exhausted, being dragged through the halls. His anger mounted until almost breathless in its intensity. It wasn’t an emotion that came naturally to him. Innate good humour and a gentle disposition enabled him to interact patiently with even the most irksome people. However, even the most mild-mannered person has a trigger, and a threat to his son, especially when Steve was unable to defend himself, was his. His body felt brittle with the tension of rage and fear that consumed him, but he harnessed it into the imperative of saving his son.

As soon as he got back to the shelter of the maintenance area, he yanked out the phone, dialing Chief Masters with shaking fingers. The Chief was his best option for fast mobilisation of effective assistance, but to Mark’s extreme frustration, he was again put through to an answering service. He quickly disconnected, calculating his options. He needed to talk to someone who would accept his improbable story without supererogatory and time-wasting questions, and the only person whom he could trust to do that was Amanda.

She answered the phone with a speed that suggested that she’d been holding it in her hand, willing it to ring. “Mark! Oh, thank God. Are you all right? What’s going on?”

“Amanda!” Mark cut off the torrent of questions. “I need you to listen carefully. The bombing was just a facade for a robbery taking place in the building to the left of the Omni as you face it from Avon Street. I need you to contact Chief Masters or Captain Newman, someone with authority, and tell them to surround the entrances as soon as humanly possible. But tell them they need to be really careful, they can’t just storm the building. There’s a hostage situation. They’ve got Steve, and I think he’s badly hurt.” The words seemed to lacerate the lining of his throat, but he forced them out anyway.

Amanda took advantage of the momentary silence to interject worriedly, “What are you going to be doing?”

“I’m not sure.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, because his actions would be dictated by the movements of the bombers. “I’m going to turn the ringer on the phone to vibrate, so call me when everyone is in place and I’ll update you on the situation. Oh, and tell them that I believe they’re dressed up as fireman to merge in with the emergency crews.” Although he wanted to reiterate the importance of speed, he trusted Amanda to understand and act upon the urgency. Replacing the cell phone in his pocket, he crept back down the corridor.

At first glance, little had changed. Several small bags had been stacked next to the wall near Steve, who hadn’t moved. However, Mark could read a fine tension in his son that informed him that the stillness now only mimicked sleep, and he guessed that Steve was listening and planning before revealing his return to consciousness.

Mark pressed himself closer to the wall as a figure crossed between him and his son. He could no longer see into the room but listened intently to the conversation. 

“That’s the last of them.”

“About time, too. We’re way behind schedule. Start distributing the stuff among the equipment. I don’t want nothing to suggest we’re anything but good, honest firemen risking our lives for the public.”

“What about the cop?”

Mark had been on the verge of retreating to a safer distance, but that question stopped him, panic scrabbling in his guts like a wild animal trying to escape when he heard the answer.

“He’s not going any further, in which case he’s outlived his usefulness as a hostage, and he’s the only person who can identify us. Kill him.”

In a moment of utmost clarity, Mark’s mind devised and discarded a dozen plans like a flat stone skipping over a lake, then he stepped into the room with his arms upraised in the universal signal of peacefulness.

“Don’t shoot. I’m unarmed.”

The three men in the room stared at him in stunned shock for a split second, then grabbed for their guns. He merely smiled at them calmly. 

“My name’s Mark. I’m a negotiator for the Los Angeles Police Department.”


	7. Chapter 7

Mark’s announcement caromed around the previously still room, nudging everyone into frantic motion. The youngest gunman, a wiry, thin-faced individual, rounded on the large, bearded man Mark pegged as the leader.

“You said it was foolproof, that the cops...”

“Shut up, Rad, and watch the corridor.” With a final glare that encompassed both his boss and Mark, Rad strode over to the door and knelt there, holding his semi-automatic loosely but professionally, clearly ready to repel a putative attack.

“Search him.” This time the brusque command was directed at Benak, and Mark turned obligingly to brace himself against the wall in the classic frisking position. He could sense the pent-up violence in the beefy man, see the potential for brutality in his cold, flat stare, and had no intention of giving him an excuse to unleash it.

Now his back was to his son, but his peripheral vision had caught Steve’s reaction to his entrance, the shocked disbelief quickly chased by relief then overtaken by counterpoised fear and anger. Mark knew that his son would have some scathing things to say about this stunt, and he could only hope that opportunity would be afforded them. In his opinion, his plan had been a resounding success since not only was Steve still alive, but there were no longer guns even menacing him.

However, now he had to maintain the fiction that had been the first plausible plan his mind had latched onto. His knowledge of police negotiation was mostly garnered from watching movies with his son and listening to Steve’s cheerfully scathing criticisms of procedural inaccuracies. Yet despite his distinct lack of physical similarity to Samuel L. Jackson, he was aware that his best chance of success lay in the gunmen’s familiarity with such staples of escapism.

In his experience, it was only in the Steve Sloan school of hostage negotiation that the negotiator marched unarmed into the midst of the negotiatees, and he was ready to take the offensive and explain his presence when he felt Benak withdraw his wallet and throw it over to his boss. His heart stuttered briefly as he tried to remember the exact nature of its contents and to find an appropriate explanation for any anomalies. 

He could explain his medical credentials as being in psychology, an appropriate sphere for his stated profession, and his LAPD consultant pass was vague enough to support his claims. But his greatest fear was that his adversary would make the connection between his name and Steve’s since such a conjecture would almost certainly be fatal for both of them. Not even the most gullible of criminals would believe that the police would send in the hostage’s father to be an objective negotiator. With his cover blown, Mark’s restraining presence would fold like a pack of cards built by inexperienced and wavering hands.

Whatever happened, he had to play for time. Help would arrive eventually. Much to his relief, the leader made no comments about his identification, merely flipping through absently, his mind clearly considering his own options for escape. 

His preoccupation emboldened Mark to take the initiative. “The LAPD has both buildings surrounded, but since you have a hostage, they sent me in to try to arrange a peaceful solution to this situation. If you leave your weapons here, you can surrender without any loss of life.” It wasn’t as if he expected his bluff to succeed, but every minute spent thinking about it increased the chances of his threat becoming a reality.

The Boss was now swinging Mark’s wallet idly between thumb and forefinger. “How did you know we were down here?”

Mark hoped the split-second of dismay hadn’t shown in his face as he initially interpreted the question to mean his dissembling was suspected. However, as he observed the Boss, he quickly realised that the man’s ego demanded an understanding of his miscalculation. Sticking as close to the truth as possible without bringing Steve into the conversation, he shrugged, “There was a search for some missing personnel, and the hole was found in the boiler room.”

“The bombs were supposed to keep people out,” Benak complained resentfully as if he took the failure of his devices to accomplish their secondary objective personally.

Mark merely lifted his shoulder in a gesture he hoped was mildly sympathetic, or at least noncombative, and definitely uncommunicative. This wasn’t exactly the time to explain that if they hadn’t made the mistake of capturing his son, their plans would probably have succeeded.

He dared not look directly at Steve, sure that the intrinsic bond they shared would be betrayed by as much as a glance. Yet his awareness of his son was so tangible he could almost see the connection stretched between them, and he could read Steve’s concern for him written large in the tension gripping every muscle.

“What’ll they do next?” The Boss asked abruptly.

Mark decided against his automatic, honest reaction of ‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ in favour of the more politic, “I can’t tell you.” But even this was enough to bring retribution down on him. 

With a swift move, Benak forced Mark back against the wall, then sunk a meaty fist viciously in his stomach. The air rushed explosively from Mark’s lungs and, as the hand restraining him was removed, he collapsed gracelessly to his knees, not even trying to breathe until the worst of the paralysing pain dissipated.

“Stop it, you bastards!”

The sound of his son’s furious voice brought Mark’s head around, and he noticed that in a strange seesawing effect as he’d gone down, Steve had somehow regained his feet. He tried to speak, afraid that in his effort to protect his father, Steve would somehow disclose their relationship, but the formation of words seemed beyond him.

“He’s not being uncooperative, he genuinely can’t tell you. It’s procedure. Police procedure.”

At the sight of his son, fear filled Mark’s veins and pounded in his chest. He could tell that the wall and the surge of fury-induced adrenaline were the only things keeping Steve upright. Every last bit of colour had leached out of his face -- which was hardly surprising considering the amount of blood he’d left behind on the floor. His blue eyes were glassy, but Mark suddenly understood the message in them and the emphasis-laden words. This had been one of Steve’s complaints while watching the movie.

“Entry teams and negotiators...always conduct their activities ...independently of each other. That way I can’t...unintentionally let something slip that might endanger ...other police officers.” It was an effort to force out the explanation, but some of tightness eased as he continued. There was a slight gamble involved, since the confession diminished his value as a hostage, but Steve was utterly incapable of sitting passively while someone hurt his father and he was in no condition to effectively protest.

As the Boss looked his way in frustration, Steve nodded. “SOP,” he confirmed weakly then punctuated the end of the sentence by sliding down the wall to land with a jarring thud. The rapid rise and fall of his chest assured Mark he was still conscious, but his face was covered in a sheen of sweat that testified to the strain standing had inflicted on him.

Although he suppressed the automatic shout of his son’s name that struggled to burst from his throat, he couldn’t check the involuntary move towards him. “I have some medical training,” he explained as casually as he could. “Maybe I can help him.”

An unyielding arm barred his way, reinforced by the rigid barrel of a gun jabbing uncomfortably into his ribs. “You don’t move without permission, you don’t breathe without permission. Is that understood?” The implacable hatred teetering on the edge of outright insanity was impossible to miss on the bearded face thrust next to his. He also got a closeup of some impressive bruises which he suspected were the basis of the large man’s antipathy towards Steve.

Mark backed carefully away to resume his previous position against the wall. “Just trying to help. A dead hostage doesn’t do you any good.” It was gut-wrenchingly difficult to sound so nonchalant about the prospect.

“Then it’s a good thing we have you as a replacement, isn’t it,” Banek taunted him.

Mark obviously hadn’t done as good a job concealing his feelings as he’d hoped, since the Boss was now looking suspicious. “You two know each other?” It was as much a statement as a question, and while Mark was considering how to respond, Steve accepted the challenge.

“Yeah, we worked on a case together, two, maybe three years ago.” 

“Three,” Mark confirmed confidently and mendaciously. The advantage of working together for so many years was their ability to seamlessly follow each other’s leads. 

Steve’s eyes were closed, and occasionally his face twisted in a spasm of pain, but he was obviously still capable of effective thought. Not only had he dispelled the inchoate distrust, but he’d also bolstered Mark’s cover and provided an explanation for why a police negotiator might have accepted such a dangerous assignment.

The Boss lost interest in them, turning to Benak instead. “Have you got enough explosives left to set a few surprises to deter these ‘entry teams’ if they try to overrun us?”

Benak smiled grimly and nodded, clearly pleased to employ his destructive skills. He shouldered a bag and left, pausing only to hand the Boss a small object.

Mark felt an overwhelming relief at his absence. Although the Boss would have no compunction in killing them, there was a core of rationality, of self-interest, to which he could appeal.

Rad spoke up from the doorway. “What about the fire, Boss? I swear it’s getting smokier out here. If we don’t get out soon, we could fry like rats in a trap.” There was an edge of panic that easily identified him as the weak link of the trio, and Mark made a mental note for future reference.

“Just shut up and keep watch and don’t shoot Benak when he comes back. I need to think.” The Boss commenced pacing across the room, and the minute his back was turned, Mark’s gaze slid like glass across the room until it collided with his son’s. In that instant of visual connection there was a wealth of communication, as eyes conveyed what voices could not: apology, acceptance, reassurance, concern, resolution, all interwoven with a profound mutual love and trust bleached to a stark simplicity in the terrifying crucible of the night’s events.

Steve’s eyes slid shut again as the Boss turned in their direction, and the sight of his drawn, wan face impelled Mark to resume his efforts at negotiation.

“The three of you have no chance against the whole of the LAPD,” he stated earnestly. “Give up now and I give you my word I’ll see you safe into custody and ensure you’re treated fairly.”

“Don’t play me for a fool!” For the first time there was a hint of passion behind the cold, emotionless eyes. “If we’re arrested, the best we could hope for is life behind bars. I’ve been to jail and I’m not going back.”

“Going down in a blaze of glory is not the romantic end it’s portrayed to be,” Mark argued steadily.

“Let me show you something.” The Boss grabbed Mark’s arm and yanked him over to the small bags resting innocuously against the wall. Undoing the draw string, he thrust his hand inside, allowing Mark to see the contents as they drained musically through his fingers. “Do you know how much this is worth?”

Mark tried to keep the disgust out of his expression. No material possession was worth a human life, and greed as motivation won no sympathy from him yet he had to establish a rapport with his captor. “A lot,” he answered flatly.

“Millions! We’ve been planning this for nearly two years, waiting for just the right combination of factors to coincide. These beauties guarantee us a life of luxury, and I’m not giving up on that. I don’t care how many cops are surrounding us.”

There was no point disputing the intrinsic value of the diamonds or the morality of his actions, but Mark’s primary goal was more limited. “To stand any chance of success, you’re going to need bargaining power.” He pointed at Steve. “And you’re going to lose your most important chip if he doesn’t receive medical attention soon. Let me at least see what I can do for him.” 

It was an extraordinarily precarious balance between allowing the urgency of basic humanity to show without revealing the more personal element to the panic that slithered through his belly like a striking snake, but he appeared to have convinced the Boss.

“Sure, go ahead.” The Boss waved him forward casually. “Oh, and that’s a bomb round his neck. Don’t touch it or mess with it in any way. A giant hole blown in his chest probably wouldn’t help his health any, or yours.”

Mark had suspected the bag contained explosives, but this cold-blooded confirmation caused a wave of pure venom to crest internally, a surge of anger and disgust so powerful it robbed him of breath, and dark sparkles encroached on his vision. He stepped forward automatically, grounding himself in his son’s steady gaze.

He knelt beside Steve, one hand reaching out to grasp his arm, allowing the tactile affirmation of his son’s presence to convince him of what sight alone couldn’t quite manage -- that the worst of the evening’s nightmares were unfounded.

With his arms tied behind his back and facing the Boss, Steve was unable to reciprocate, but the deliberate pressure of his knee against his father’s conveyed the same message.

An additional arrow of hot agony lanced through Mark’s guts at the realisation that he could act neither as a doctor, although the complete lack of medical equipment mitigated that issue, or as a father. He was never capable of remaining detached when Steve was injured, and the thought of acting dispassionate and incompetent suddenly seemed like an impossible task at the end of the long day.

His discomfort telegraphed itself along the bond he shared with his son, and Steve spoke. “Hey, Mark. I’d like to say it’s good to see you again, but under the circumstances, I’m not sure that’s true.”

Mark’s first instinct was to check his son’s pulse, but Steve’s wrists were bound and inaccessible. Frustration grated at already raw nerves as he considered how to stem the flow of blood that assaulted his nostrils like the sharp odor of fresh metal shavings. He had no bandages or clean material of any kind with which to work, and if the wounds had started to clot and were adhering to the surrounding cloth, he could actually exacerbate the situation.

His hesitation prompted another comment from his son. “I could talk you through it if you want.” It sounded like a sincere offer from a more experienced source, but Mark could see the glint of humour in Steve’s eyes as well as the hint of concern, and this time the nudge of the knee offered reassurance.

Careful exploration suggested he leave the bullet wound in the arm alone, it was a relatively innocuous, although messy, furrow. However, as he moved to examine Steve’s side, it was obvious from the way the muscles in his son’s neck and chest tensed in anticipation that the injuries there were more severe. As gently as possible he probed the slash over his ribs, revealing the white of bone beneath the copious gore. Despite his delicate touch, Steve’s breath hitched as the rib shifted, clearly broken.

“Sorry.” He swallowed hard to keep the waver out of his voice. A glance showed him the tendrils of pain reaching deep in his son’s blue eyes despite the smile of reassurance still residing there. His lips were pressed so tightly together they appeared as a slash of white in his pale face.

“You’ve seen worse.” The words were almost inaudible, intended only for Mark’s ears. They were obviously true, but also proved erroneous. He had considerable experience with the horrific damage caused by bullets to the human body, but that lifetime of familiarity offered surprisingly little emotional protection to the sight of the bullet hole he discovered lower in his son’s abdomen.

It was clearly the source of the majority of the blood loss and was still oozing copiously, crimson streaks snaking out from the heated, swollen edges of the hole like lava from a crater and charting a path down into his already sodden pants.

Mark took a deep breath, but succeeded only in coating his tastebuds with the coppery taste of blood and sweat. “Lean forward a bit,” he directed, supporting his son’s weight as he complied. 

“Don’t touch his restraints,” the Boss drawled, lifting his gun to underscore the command.

“I’m just checking for an exit wound,” Mark snapped, easing Steve back against the wall. “I need something to stop the bleeding.” He looked to the gunman for some help, but received only a stare of complete indifference. “Do you have some kind of cloth, something to act as a bandage?” 

The continued lack of response snapped his last thread of patience, his anger detonating in a barely contained burst of oratorical pyrotechnics. “Don’t you understand that a dead hostage is no use to you at all? If he dies, not only will the wrath of the LAPD descend on you, but I swear I’ll make it my life’s goal to make sure you rot in Death Row.”

The knee frantically nudging against his informed him his reaction had departed from the diplomacy expected by a negotiator, but he found it hard to care. Reining himself to a more moderate tone, he continued. “He should be in a hospital, but all I’m asking for is some sort of cloth to stop the bleeding.”

The Boss contemplated him coldly for another moment then walked over to a bag, pulling something out and throwing it to Mark. “If you threaten me again, I’ll put a bullet between his eyes. Do you understand me?”

Mark nodded with assumed meekness. “Thank you.”

The two small towels weren’t ideal for the task, but they were considerably better than nothing. However without his professional persona to fall back on and in the total absence of analgesics, he recoiled at the idea of the pain he’d have to inflict in their firm application. Catching his son’s eyes, he silently sought and received permission to proceed, but before he could begin, his movements were arrested by a strange sound that froze everyone in place --it was the incongruous strains of The Entertainer emanating from Amanda’s phone.


	8. Chapter 8

Only Steve, with his years of experience reading the nuances in his father’s expression, could have guessed how unwelcome this call was to Mark, and he had the additional clue of the sudden increase in tension in the arms that supported him.

Steve was familiar with the distinctive ring of Amanda’s phone and, despite his mental exhaustion, he could instantly visualise half-a-dozen catastrophic scenarios the sound could portend. A call from her mother or baby-sitter would instantly destroy Mark’s credibility. 

He had never been under the illusion that his father was acting in any official capacity; he recognised the spur of the moment extemporising which had served Mark so successfully in the past. This time, however, while he appreciated the reprieve from death his father had provided, it seemed likely to be only temporary and far too costly, since now Mark would almost certainly die with him. That was unacceptable in the Steve Sloan book of accounting, but, realistically, his ability to influence events was limited. As he shifted surreptitiously, trying for a position that would enable him to gain his feet effectively, he discovered that even that simple movement caused sparkly whorls to dance around the ceiling, a precursor to the darkness that sought to encroach on his vision.

Once again, by sheer will power, he fought back the insistently beckoning comfort of unconsciousness, telling himself firmly that there was no time for pandering to his weakness. Everyone was staring at the cell phone as if its chimes were the rattles of a snake poised to strike.

“Answer it. Put it on speaker phone,” the Boss commanded abruptly. 

Again, Steve was the only person who recognised the reluctance behind his father’s polite smile as Mark reached to pick up the device.

The Boss moved closer to Steve, pointing his gun significantly at his prisoner’s kneecap. “And if you say anything that I don’t like, the cop will never walk again.”

Mark snatched back his hand as if the rattler had sunk its fangs deep into his flesh. “How am I supposed to read your mind?” he expostulated. “I’m not going to take that chance. You answer it!”

An emphatic gesture with the gun towards the phone was his only answer.

“Then tell me exactly what you want me to say.” It wasn’t the response a professional negotiator would have given, but Mark wasn’t willing to watch his son maimed over a misunderstanding or slip of the tongue.

“Tell ‘em whatever you need to to keep them out of here,” the Boss retorted impatiently. “Tell ‘em the place is rigged to blow and their colleague is too. At the first sniff of an assault, I’ll blow him sky high.”

Steve could see the reverberations of that threat shudder through his father, but the doctor accepted the phone with his customary composure.

“I’ll watch you the whole time,” he told the gunman. “If I say anything you think is against your interests, make a signal, and I’ll stop speaking immediately. I’m not trying any tricks; I just want to get everybody out of here alive.”

His words were clearly sincere and were also the most convincing things he had said in the role he was playing, and Steve hoped that the effect of the natural trustworthiness Mark exuded would not be destroyed by an incongruous caller on the line.

With a noncommittal, “Hello,” Mark opened the line.

“Dr. Sloan, what the hell is going on?”

Steve slumped against the wall in relief as the gravely tones of the Chief of Police echoed tinnily through the microphone. It appeared that he had underestimated his father, not for the first time, but on closer examination, he could have sworn that Mark was as surprised as he was, so perhaps the easing of his anxiety was premature.

“Chief Masters, as the official negotiator for the LAPD, it is my professional opinion that none of our men should enter the building at this time,” Mark declared formally.

There was a long moment of silence at the other end, which suggested to Steve that his father’s new position had come as something of a shock to the Chief, who needed a moment to assimilate this new information. However, he had not become Chief of Police without the ability to quickly adjust in volatile situations, and soon he responded carefully, “I understand and will take it under advisement.”

After another pause, he asked, “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

In equally measured tones, his eyes never wavering from the Boss, Mark responded, “I have been instructed to inform you that the building has been booby-trapped with explosives which will be detonated if the police attempt to enter the building. Also, your missing lieutenant is here. He has a bomb around his neck which will be detonated if these instructions aren’t followed.”

“I understand,” the Chief repeated, his heavy tone a private recognition of the effort it had cost Mark to deliver that news. “Do these terrorists have any other demands to make or suggestions as to the resolution of this situation?”

Mark raised a questioning eyebrow at the Boss, then obediently put his hand over the microphone at a gesture of command. Clearly, the man was worried about voice identification. 

“Tell him to call back in half an hour. We’ll have a list of demands then,” the Boss said curtly. Mark relayed the information and closed the connection.

Steve surrendered the battle he’d been waging against his eyelids, and eased slightly to his left, searching for the elusive position that would at least partially alleviate the distress of aching muscles wrenched by sustained and unnatural demands. He knew he had to husband his waning strength for the inevitable confrontation, and his considerable experience told him that such situations rarely ended happily for hostages or their kidnappers.

“What are you going to ask for, Boss?” Rad inquired nervously. “You know they’re not just going to let us walk out of here.”

No one responded to his burst of pessimism, so he continued to expound on his theme. “Even with hostages, their sharpshooters will pick us off like...like...” Evidently lacking a satisfactory ending to his simile, he switched to a metaphor midstream. “We’ll be sitting ducks!” Again, he took the ensuing silence as encouragement to resume. “I did see this movie once where they covered up their heads with blankets so the snipers couldn’t tell who was who and couldn’t get a shot off.”

“You might actually have something there.” The Boss’s voice was warm with interest.

“Really?” Rad sounded more surprised than pleased. 

“Yes, really. Now shut up so I can think.”

Steve’s personal, but unvoiced, opinion was that they were severely deluded if they thought the police would let them go under any circumstances. The negative publicity inherent in allowing these men to escape after blowing up the mayor’s party and terrifying the city would far outweigh the lives of two hostages.

He felt Mark ease himself down by his side, careful not to jar his son’s injuries. Although Steve bitterly regretted his father’s involvement in their precarious situation, and would infinitely prefer Mark were somewhere far from danger, he couldn’t deny the comfort of his staunch, warm presence. He wished there was some way to express his appreciation, to acknowledge all that his father was to him. He knew his thoughts were getting maudlin, but although he refused to give up hope, he recognised that his own prospects were dim. If he didn’t get shot, Benak would ensure that the bomb around his neck would blow him to pieces, and the only resolution he could offer himself was that he’d do his damnedest to ensure his father wasn’t in the vicinity when that happened.

Evidently he faded out at some point, because the next thing he knew, Mark was gently nudging him, and he opened his eyes to his father’s worried stare. He tried to clear the fog that befuddled his mind, but it took a bout of coughing that wrenched agonisingly at his side to yank him from the confusion of semiconsciousness. As the worst waves of grinding pain receded, he discovered Mark was supporting him and although his body felt like he’d been extruded through a meat grinder, Steve warned him off with an acknowledging nod. “I’m okay, thanks.”

He could sense that his father was close to exhaustion and the effort expended on continuing their charade of being mere acquaintances was proving exponentially draining under the distressing conditions.

“I need to check the bleeding,” Mark stated abruptly, obviously still needing to feel useful despite his flagging energy levels. 

Rad’s focus was on the corridor outside while the Boss, still intent on his internal planning, was mostly hidden from Steve’s view as Mark knelt in front of him. Mark’s customary emotional control was slipping, and Steve could see the embers of worry flaring into angry fire in his father’s blue eyes as he assessed his son’s injuries.

Steve didn’t need those subtle clues to inform him that his condition was deteriorating. He was all too familiar with the symptoms of shock and blood loss. He was finding it hard to concentrate on anything for long, he was sweating, although chills rippled through his body, and it was a sure bet that his blood pressure couldn’t climb high enough to peek over his shoes.

The unexpected, if limited, privacy clearly afforded a rare opportunity for personal communication. There were so many things Steve wanted to say, a swirling mass of imperatives that stuck unformed in his throat until, like slag rising to the top of molten metal, one thought floated free.

“If you get the chance, run!” It was barely a whisper, despite the urgency behind it, but he knew his father had received the message as his hands stilled and, when they resumed their ministrations, they expressed anger   
in their jerky movements.

It hadn’t been what he’d intended to say, and despite the honesty fueling the sentiment, Steve regretted uttering the words. 

“Dad,” he breathed and, in a moment of confused agitation, started to struggle against the perplexing restraints that prevented him from reaching out to his father. The exertion set off another paroxysm of coughing, and Steve reflexively curled up again in an abortive effort to ease the pain. Red spots that mimicked the colour of blood oozed before his eyes as he struggled to draw oxygen into abused lungs.

Again he became aware of the warmth of his father’s arms holding him, cushioning him from the effects of the convulsions that overwhelmed him.

“Take it easy, just relax and breathe gently. You’re going to be fine,” Mark’s tones were remarkably reassuring, even before Steve was able to distinguish the specific advice. 

As the vice around his chest eased, he was gently propped back against the wall, and a whisper intended for his ears alone bolstered his fading resolution. “We’re going to get out of here...together.”

As Mark’s gaze captured his own, in those familiar blue depths Steve could see all the things he’d wanted to tell his father. In that split second, all that existed was the connection between them -- the warmth, the trust, the love. His failure to articulate his feelings was inconsequential, since words were inadequate to encompass all that lay between them, yet they both understood.

Breathing was becoming harder, his lungs painfully straining to draw in enough oxygen, and tremors scudded continually through his body, but with renewed determination, he tried to devise an escape. ‘There must be fifty ways to leave your captor,’ his tired mind warbled hazily. That might be true, and if his hands weren’t tied behind him, a bomb wasn’t strapped to his chest and his father wasn’t in imminent danger of being caught in the crossfire, he could perhaps have contrived half a dozen. Now, he hoped that Mark had a plan because the best he could come up with was the vague expectation that an opportunity would present itself during the escape attempt.

“Hey, Benak’s coming back.” Rad declared nervously from the doorway. Steve could almost feel the increased tension crawling acidly across his father’s skin at the announcement. Benak’s return significantly decreased the odds of escape he’d computed to...well, zero. Despite his attempts to control them, his thoughts continued to roll around his over tired brain in random patterns.

“What’s our position?” the Boss asked crisply as soon as his bomb expert strode in.

Benak scowled as he spotted Mark ministering to his most loathed prisoner, and he altered his course in their direction even as his pace slowed. “This guy told the truth; it’s absolutely crawling with cops outside, but so far, they’re just waiting, not trying to get inside. If they do, they ain’t going to make it very far.” 

He aimed a vicious kick at Steve but, apparently by accident, Mark moved into its path, intercepting the blow. “Leave them alone,” the Boss commanded impatiently. “We need to discuss our plans. Is there any way to get into the next building along?”

“Sure,” Benak shrugged. “Same way we got in here -- a directed charge will get us through the wall.”

“Good,” the Boss approved. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. This is what we’re going to do. When they contact us for our demands, we’ll give them the usual crap about a car to the airport, transportation to a country without extradition. We’ll tell them we’re all coming out under blankets so any attempt to shoot us will just as likely kill one of the hostages. We’ll give them a specific time and, at that exact minute, we’ll blow the place to pieces. They’ll concentrate their forces there, and it should cause tremendous confusion. Simultaneously, we detonate the charge into the next building and exit out on the other side.

“Nobody knows we’re dressed as firemen. Hopefully there’ll be no questions asked and we can slip away with the loot. Worse case scenario -- we have the element of surprise and blast our way through.”

Even Steve had to admit it was a halfway decent plan, although there was something about Mark’s overly bland reaction which made him suspect that their disguise wasn’t as clandestine as they would like to believe.

“You think they’ll buy it -- the blanket bit I mean,” Benak asked dubiously.

“Oh yeah, they’ll buy it, because it’ll be one of their own telling them.” The Boss nodded pointedly at Mark.

“You can’t trust him,” Benak declared furiously. “He’s a cop! He’ll say something, a code word that’ll put them onto us.”

“No he won’t,” the Boss declared confidently. “Because if he says one word that I don’t like, one word that strays from the script, there’ll be no warning shots this time. I’ll splatter his friend’s brains against the wall.” He stepped forward, resting the muzzle of his gun lightly against Steve’s temple in ominous illustration.

Steve contemplated the irony of being used as a hostage for his father’s behaviour even though the true force of that threat went unrealised -- their dependence placed purely on Mark’s humanity.

“Don’t hurt him. I’ll do whatever you want.”

The gun dropped away from his head at Mark’s immediate capitulation, the Boss’s satisfied smile accentuating the ease of his victory.

“Why don’t you write down exactly what you want me to say,” Mark continued agreeably. “That way you’ll know I’m not trying to pull anything. I’ll read it exactly from the paper.” He reached into a pocket and extracted a small notebook, tearing off a few sheets and handing them over.

Steve straightened as he recognised the mild tone in his father’s voice that signalled the careful control of his temper. He had heard that exact dulcet timbre innumerable times as Mark maneuvered his opponents into accepting a move that would bring about their downfall. He wasn’t sure what Mark had in mind, but he had to allow his father to take the lead; his part was merely to remain alert and back his father’s play. 

Although Mark appeared to be at ease, his stress was betrayed by the unnatural rigidity of his posture and the emptiness on his face. Steve could discern the crisp layer of terror hiding beneath the calm in his father’s eyes and tried to convey his support and trust. There would be risk involved in any scheme, but since their ultimate fate would undoubtedly be a violent, one might say explosive, death if the gunmen succeeded in their escape, there was nothing to lose. He hoped his father understood the necessity of accepting a dangerous gamble.

Mark scribbled down the Boss’s words as coolly as a secretary taking dictation in a plush, air-conditioned office, then handed the papers over for inspection. 

As time ran out on the brief reprieve, an odd stillness fell, a taut silence poised on the knife blade of suspicion, sliced to the bone by desperation and bleached white by unrelieved tension. 

Although Steve, like everyone in the room, was waiting for the phone to ring, the musical tones, when they came, caused him to flinch, the sound echoing through the quiet of the room shattering the frozen tableau. As if released by a spring, the Boss uncoiled his large frame from the table he’d been reclining against, thrusting the phone into Mark’s hands as he crossed the floor.

Steve scowled defiantly up at the gunman as the barrel was again placed against his hairline and a shove thudded his head back against the wall, but it wasn’t his best effort. After the intense and scrambled emotions of the night, he felt curiously numb, overloaded by chilling fear and burning fury. Besides, hanging around with a bomb decorating his neck tended to drain the threat from something as mundane as a gun. However, the haunted look in his father’s eyes as he stared at the white ring on his son’s forehead, caused by the pressure of the muzzle, told him Mark was not able to regard the intimidation with similar equanimity.

Steve’s thought processes were held together by strips of duct tape that were tearing apart, soaked with blood and exhaustion. The room had become just a blur of feeling and image, despite his attempt to concentrate on Mark’s conversation on the cell phone. In the confusion, his father’s voice was like a touch, a friendly, reassuring arm across his shoulders, but he couldn’t make out the words.

Squeezing his eyes together to clear the purple shimmer that obstructed them, he focused on Mark. The ersatz negotiator was reading conscientiously from his notes, but his fingers were trembling, the fluttering of the sheets in his grasp an indication of the magnitude of the tremors coursing through him. The juggling of cell phone, papers and nerves proved too much. As Mark shuffled to the third sheet, it escaped his grasp, floating evasively downwards and he regained it only at the expense of the cell phone, which plummeted to the floor. He almost succeeded in grabbing it but fumbled the catch, causing the device to emit a squeal of protest.

Stooping over and snatching the cell phone up, causing it to beep again, Mark flashed a desperate glance of apology and a whispered, “Sorry,” in the Boss’s direction, but the gunman seemed more impatient than furious at the clumsiness and merely waved his gun in a prompting gesture.

The conversation was finished with no further mishaps, and Mark closed the phone with an air of finality, letting the arm holding it fall to his side. He didn’t need to meet the Boss’s assessing, speculative stare to tell him that they had reached a pivotal juncture, that their lives were balanced precariously on the razor edge of homicidal calculation. 

The Boss had yet to remove the gun from Steve’s head and Mark used every ounce of remaining strength to keep his voice steady as he remarked confidently, “You still need hostages.” If challenged on that assumption, he’d be hard pressed to invent a single legitimate justification for their continued existence, but he hoped his conviction would persuade where reason might fail.

Mark could sense that, at the slightest signal from him, Steve would attempt resistance, not out of the slightest hope that it would succeed, but out of preference for going out fighting instead of being shot like a dog against the wall. 

For another agonisingly long moment, the decision hung in the balance; then the Boss gave a nod of acknowledgment. “Let’s get our stuff together and move out,” he said curtly to Rad. Then he turned back to Mark. “If he can’t keep up,” he waved his gun at Steve, “he stays here.”

Mark was under no illusion what the euphemism ‘stays here’ implied. “He’ll keep up,” he stated with assurance, again knowing his words were probably a lie, but resolved to carry his son if necessary to make them true. 

The immediate crisis had passed, and they were still alive, but that state of affairs was likely to be temporary. He had staved off the inevitable with bluff and eloquence for a remarkably long time, but there were limits to such methods. With no hope of rescue, the hour of reckoning was almost upon them.


	9. Chapter 9

Despite his blithe reassurance to the Boss, Mark wasn’t sure if Steve would even be able to stand, never mind keep up with an exacting escape. As he knelt beside his son, he was struck by the unhealthy gray pallor of Steve’s face, and his chest compressed painfully. Even Steve’s bruises, stark purple badges on an ashen field, were more washed out than vivid. Evidence of further medical complications in the form of dehydration lay in his son’s sunken eyes and chapped lips. This wasn’t surprising considering the heat, exertion and smoke through which Steve had laboured for hours that night, not to mention the blood loss. But despite everything, his gaze was still clear and alert. 

“Is there any water, anything to drink?” Mark directed the question at their captors with little hope of a positive reply. Neither man even bothered to respond, and with a grimace of frustration, the doctor turned back to his son.

“Do you think you can get to your feet?” he asked in a low voice.

“Sure, no problem.” Steve’s tone held the same disregard for harsh reality that Mark himself had used in response to the Boss. However, it was an assurance backed up by a fire of determination. Mark could tell his son was operating on sheer will alone, but he knew that to be a formidable force.

“Let me help.” While respecting the power of Steve’s dogged resolve, he didn’t discount the fact that, after being trussed up for several hours, his son’s injuries would have stiffened up to the point of immobility.

Steve shifted awkwardly to get his good leg under him as Mark reached down to grip his son’s arm as effectively as its bound position allowed, then, in synchronous effort, they both heaved upwards. Their success seemed likely to be only transitory, and Mark braced his son against the wall for support as he wavered precariously. Steve’s face was contorted in pain, his breath laboured and short, and his injured leg trembled uncontrollably beneath him.

“Steve?” Desperation coloured the implied question as Mark tried in vain to find a hold that would allow him to support more of his son’s weight. He appealed once more to the gunmen. “Can’t I untie his hands? He’s no threat to you now.”

“No!” The curt answer from the Boss left little room for debate, and any idea of cajoling them round to his way of thinking was abruptly cut off by the realisation that any points he made about the necessity of releasing Steve’s restraints could equally be used to condemn him to death as a liability.

“I’ll be fine when we’re moving,” Steve claimed staunchly. “I just need a chance to warm up.”

He hoped it was true, but the mere act of standing generated a wave of overwhelming nausea, and the effort he directed into not throwing up left him gasping for breath. The suppression resulted in a painful cough that deposited a bitter acidic-bile taste in his dry mouth. He wondered what would happen if he emptied the contents of his stomach on the Boss’s shoes but decided to reserve his best Exorcist impression for a more critical moment since it was the most effective weapon left to him, and it might make a useful distraction later.

His father’s strength was all that kept him on his feet, but he tried to shift some of his weight to the wall to spare Mark the burden while he tensed and stretched the muscles in his legs in an attempt to restore their mobility. His reward was a plunging vertigo accompanied by a sharp crescendo in the fiery pins of feeling jabbing his leg. The room circled around him in a variety of molten shapes and colors, and he must have swayed in concert, because he felt his father tighten his grip and move in closer, both physical and emotional support offered in the gesture. 

Steve didn’t have to glance at Mark to see the look of concern on his face, he could feel the doctor’s struggle to control his fear for his son like a tangible wave roiling just beneath his calm exterior, so he kept his eyes fixed on the Boss, watching for an opening, some kind of vulnerability. 

For the first time, the gunman was displaying symptoms of slight nervousness, checking his watch compulsively. He was now fully dressed in his fireman’s regalia, helmet and all, and there was something incongruous in the sight, the clothes epitomising a man of courage and trustworthiness. Steve was under no illusion as to the ruthlessness of the murderer facing him, but he was worried that the LAPD might hesitate before firing on a fellow rescue worker.

Rad was the most jittery of the group, pacing edgily between the room and the corridor, and his relief was obvious as he finally announced Benak’s return. The Boss gave a last glance at his watch. “Let’s get moving. We’ve got ten minutes to get in position.”

Since Steve’s restraints prevented Mark from looping his son’s arm over his shoulder, he awkwardly threaded his arm around Steve’s waist. It wasn’t particularly comfortable and left his face alarmingly close to the bomb, but it did enable him to act as an impromptu crutch and counteract the tendency of Steve’s injured leg to buckle when bearing weight.

As evidence of their visit, they left behind a rifled vault, a semi-congealed pool of blood and two lamps, as the gunmen decided that flashlights would not only provide sufficient illumination for their passage but would also be more appropriate for their assumed roles. The journey through the dark bowels of the smoky building was a nightmare of heat, fear and confusion exacerbated by the uneven strobe-like effect of the moving flashlights.

Although Steve was correct in believing that movement would become easier as his stiff body loosened, Mark could still feel the cost to his son’s overtaxed system -- the pounding of a heart attempting to compensate for inadequate blood supply reverberated through his frame too. Laboured breathing drove Steve’s ribs arrhythmically against his supporting arm, and the continuous tremble of distressed muscles shook them both. Despite their best efforts, their pace was hindering the terrorists, and Benak’s impatient hectoring escalated to prodding with the barrel of his gun and eventually to shoving Steve, which had the domino effect of sending Mark sprawling into the Boss, his hands outstretched to break his fall. 

The leader regained his balance and spun angrily around, pushing Mark away, then, unjustly picking on Steve as the instigator of the debacle, he aimed his gun purposefully at the injured man prone on the floor.

“No!” Mark moved instinctively in front of his son. The muzzle lifted to threaten him, but he refused to yield, his body language loudly broadcasting the message that the Boss would have to go through him to reach Steve.

In the light reflected from the flashlights, Mark could see suspicion flare in the Boss’s eyes, the willingness to sacrifice generating questions in a cynical mind. He could hear Steve forcing himself to his feet behind him and willed him not to interfere but, to his surprise, it was Benak who broke the tableau, spitting out something in an incomprehensible, guttural language. After a final moment of consideration, the Boss nodded. “Let’s go!”

Mark resumed his place at his son’s side. “When we get home,” Steve’s voice rasped in his ear, “we’re going to have a little chat about your irrational tendency to jump in front of loaded firearms.” 

Mark’s grin in response to the comment felt rusty from disuse, but it was genuine in his relief that Steve felt robust enough to joke. They struggled on again, this time with Benak urging them from behind. 

The numbing tensions of survival within the building produced a sense of disconnection and insulation from the world outside, and they were all caught unprepared by the ambush.

“LAPD. Don’t move!” The shout and blinding light that accompanied it were temporarily successful in enforcing the command, since everyone was too stunned to think of disobeying.

With hindsight, Mark could identify each individual’s movements and actions in the ensuing chaos, but at the time, his understanding was limited by only sporadic flashes of illumination as violence erupted. Any possible attempt at subterfuge on the part of the gunmen was destroyed when Rad panicked, firing indiscriminately down the hall. Too far ahead to derive shield value from the hostages, he was dropped by a single bullet, his body collapsing with a limp finality.

Mark hesitated for a vital split second, unsure whether it was safer simply to drop to the ground or if they should try to reach their potential rescuers. Amidst the sudden cacophony of shouts and shots, a thick arm encircled his neck, yanking him away from Steve as a voice painfully close to his ear yelled, “Back off or I’ll kill him. Back off now!”

Mark kicked backwards frantically, hoping to connect with his captor’s shin, but he couldn’t seem to locate a leg before he was pulled off-balance and dragged away. He struggled furiously until the arm around his neck tightened to the point that the lack of oxygen forced his resistance into the more passive, deadweight variety. It was now pitch black, and his other senses strove to provide some clues to the proceedings. He caught the sound of running footsteps, though the roaring of blood in his ears almost obliterated all peripheral noise. Benak backed abruptly into a wall, then edged rapidly sideways, and Mark realised that they’d turned a corner back in the passageway they’d recently traversed. He tugged with both hands at the girdling limb in the hopes of increasing his air supply but to little avail. Benak had no plans for escape but neither did surrender seem to be on his list of possible decisions. 

A light flared again briefly, and Mark’s eyes watered at the unexpected shock, but he blinked furiously and was searching the gloom for Steve when something smashed into Benak from the side, an unseen force with enough momentum to carry the gunman violently backwards. Reluctant to lose hold on either his gun or his hostage, Benak was slow to break his fall, and his head impacted against the wall. Clearly stunned, he slid down into a seated position and his grip loosened, enabling Mark to fight his way free, rolling away as he drew in a whooping breath. He tried to call out for his son, but his abused throat produced only a strangled croak. 

Peering into the uncertain gloom relieved only by a fallen flashlight, he suddenly recognised Steve in the shadowy shape poised over the recumbent bomber. Even as he watched, Steve brought his knee up sharply into the face of his nemesis, snapping Benak’s head back to ricochet for a second time against the wall, a coup de grace that caused him to collapse bonelessly on the floor. 

For a second, Steve stared down at his fallen enemy, then he spun around, his eyes scouring the dim corridor. Mark followed his gaze, relaxing in relief as he realised they were the only two conscious inhabitants of the area. Then their eyes met, and Mark’s breath caught in his throat as he tried to decipher the expression on his son’s face, a look he’d never seen before.

A new tension skittered along his spine at the sudden sensation of the distance between them expanding like a spawning black hole. He instinctively took a step forward, then his mouth dropped open in shock as Steve turned and ran, to be quickly swallowed up by the dark.

This behaviour was inexplicable; Steve couldn’t be chasing after the Boss, although the gunman had almost certainly disappeared in the same direction. With his hands tied behind him, Steve could only offer target practice or, at best, a resumption of the hostage situation.

Mark’s mind was blank with reeling incomprehension; then realisation slammed into him like a fist in the guts. 

“Steve!” His son’s name was torn from a place deep inside him in a cry of anguish.

The bomb!


	10. Chapter 10

Mark had the presence of mind to snatch up the fallen flashlight before following Steve. It was a bizarre chase, a macabre reversal of their earlier route. Under normal circumstances, he could never have caught up with his son, but Steve’s pace was more of a shambling stagger than a run.

Mark didn’t waste any breath on calling out, sensing it would merely spur Steve to greater efforts. The need to protect his father had lent the younger man a burst of adrenaline, but it quickly petered out, leaving Steve stumbling blindly forward. A sideways lurch sent him through a partly-open door, and he continued automatically until brought up short by the hard edge of a desk.

“Steve!” Mark placed a hand on his son’s heaving shoulder, but Steve shrugged it off wildly, trying to increase the space between them by shuffling backwards.

“Dad, get out of here. Please!” Steve’s voice was hoarse, and the words were barely intelligible through his gulping intakes of air. “He could blow it at any second!”

Mark again reached out, but Steve evaded his grasp. “Dad, please!” he repeated, desperation, exhaustion and hopelessness braided into a thick knot that choked his throat.

That tightness found an echo in the hard lump of pain in Mark’s stomach as he remembered the expression on his son’s face that had puzzled him and which he finally recognised as a goodbye. Steve had believed he was going to die but had been determined that his father would not be blown up with him. Mark had no intention of letting either happen.

“Steve, keep still,” he commanded in a forbidding tone that he hadn’t used since his children were small. “If you keep moving, it’s just going to take longer to get this off.”

He needed both hands to untie the straps, so he hastily placed the flashlight on the desk, beam pointing upwards. The first buckle came apart easily, but the other side proved more stubborn, and as his fingers fumbled at the release, Mark could feel his son’s muscles quivering with tension like those of a fine racehorse ready to bolt. Finally, the last buckle came free and, with a shudder of loathing, Mark flung it away from him, sliding it across the floor. He had aimed for the doorway, but his accuracy was impaired by his haste, and it came to rest against the wall beside the opening. He hoped it was far enough away. The gunmen hadn’t seemed too perturbed by the prospect of it exploding in the same room as them, so he suspected the charge it contained was small and directed.

For now, his first concern was his son. “Untie my hands!” It was more an order than a plea, brittle with urgency, but Steve’s earlier attempts at escape had twisted the tape into sticky, unyielding rolls, and only the discovery of a letter opener on the desk allowed Mark to succeed in his objective. He caught a glimpse of raw wrists before Steve’s knees buckled and, unable to support his son’s weight, he eased them both down to the floor.

Steve sat with his knees drawn up protectively to his chest and his head resting on arms that hugged his legs. Mark mirrored his posture companionably close but feeling curiously numb inside. It seemed he had packed every conceivable emotion from abject terror to heated fury to profound sorrow into a few short hours, and now that danger wasn’t breathing its halitosis-laden breath down their necks, the overload temporarily incapacitated him.

For a minute there was silence, then Steve lifted his head. “What did you think you were doing?” He sounded more weary than angry. “That bomb could have gone off at any time, but you came running after me like a lemming with a death wish.”

“Well, running away from the one man who could remove the bomb wouldn’t exactly be classified as sound survival thinking,” Mark retorted. “Besides, I knew something you didn’t.”

He reached into his pocked and dangled an object in front of his son. Steve leaned forward slightly to peer at it in the dim light. “The detonator?” he queried incredulously.

“The detonator,” Mark confirmed a trifle smugly. “I lifted it out of the Boss’s pocket when we had the collision in the corridor.” He didn’t think it politic to mention that if he hadn’t had it, the only difference would have been he would possibly have run slightly faster after his son.

Steve allowed his head to fall backwards with an audible thunk on the desk behind him. “Dad, you’re...” Words obviously failed him, but after a moment, he continued more strongly. “I’m glad you’re on our side. Speaking of which, I think you need to make a decision on your new career. Are you going to be a bomb disposal expert or a police negotiator?”

Mark rubbed his mustache with the tips of his fingers. “As to that, it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Really?” Steve feigned surprise, but it was a fragile effort. However, after a pause, a shaky hand reached out to clasp his father’s wrist. “You had them convinced. I’d write you a reference any day, but I swear you took ten years off my life. If you do it again, they’ll be fitting me in one of those attractive jackets that fasten at the ba...” The sentiment trailed off in a choking cough and Mark, alarmed both by the sound and by the weakness of his son’s grasp, spun around onto one knee.

With a guilty start, he realised incredulously that the adrenaline high of the chase and subsequent removal of the bomb had temporarily wiped the concern over his son’s injuries from his mind, but now it was renewed with intensified vigour. “Steve?” he queried urgently.

Another squeeze was intended for reassurance. “I’m fine, Dad.”

Mark snorted his disbelief and accompanied it with a Pinocchio pantomime to communicate his opinion of that optimism. “One of these days, I’m going to buy you a dictionary and show you the definition of that word. You look like a limping ad for road kill!”

From somewhere beyond the pain and exhaustion, Steve found a grin and dragged it to the surface. “You haven’t looked in a mirror recently,” he whispered.

Mark ignored his own condition as irrelevant. "How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked, raising just one digit on his right hand so that Steve had a clear view.

"If I'd known there was going to be a test, I'd have studied," Steve muttered. “One?” It was more a question than a statement.

A quick investigation revealed that the makeshift bandages were sodden with blood. “Damn it, Steve,” Mark’s voice snagged, and his eyes searched around desperately in the dim light for some material to supplement the dressing.

“Dad.” Uncertainty wavered in the monosyllable and Mark looked up sharply. “I think I was wrong. I feel...” How he felt was never enunciated, but was clearly demonstrated, as he listed heavily to the left then limply slid sideways. 

Mark caught him before his son’s injuries were crowned with a further concussion and scrabbled clumsily for a pulse. His professional abilities appeared to have been crushed by the sheer weight of fear and fatigue pressing down on him, and what should have been a simple task took frantic seconds too long. Once found, the weak, thready vibration against his fingertips offered little reassurance.

Hard sought, hard won discipline took over, and he forced himself to think through the despair that raged through him like a physical pain. It was a measure of his exhaustion that it took him several seconds to remember the cell phone in his pocket. He fumbled it out and, squinting in the dim light, pressed a series of memorised numbers.

A voice answered immediately with a tense bark. “Yes?”

“Chief, I need medical help down here now. Steve’s unconscious and...”

“Mark!” The sound of his first name instead of the more typical use of his formal title broke through the doctor’s preoccupation, and he stopped talking to listen. 

“You’re with Steve, right?” At Mark’s worried affirmative, Masters continued urgently. “We’ve got you both on infra-red and I can have my men there in about two minutes. However, we’ve got an unknown approaching your position. Lay low or stall till we get there. Do you understand?”

The last words were lost, blurring into so much white noise as fear resounded in his veins, his blood not irrigating his brain any more, which left his thoughts to collide and drift with no particular direction. 

Protect Steve. Hide. These imperatives burst through the deafening symphony of terror and helplessness which momentarily consumed him. Realising that the beam of the flashlight would betray their presence, he reached up to turn it off, but he never completed the move.

Whether he sensed a subtle change in air pressure or whether it was the instinct of prey hunted by a ruthless predator, he knew it was too late. He rose slowly to his feet, moving casually in front of Steve, before turning to face the figure in the doorway. Suddenly icy calm, he knew what he had to do.

It was impossible to read any expression in the murky light, although the aimed gun left little doubt as to the Boss’s frame of mind, but when he spoke madness dripping moltenly off every word.

“This is your fault. You ruined everything.”

“I would offer you my apologies, but it would be insincere of me,” Mark responded coolly. It was a new game now. He was merely playing for time, and anything that delayed the inevitable was acceptable. The fact that a conversation was potentially fatal was irrelevant as long as it wasn’t immediately fatal. 

“You almost got away with it. It was a brilliant plan,” Mark continued. “But you made one mistake.” The combination of flattery and criticism was calculated to appeal to the gunman’s pride and curiosity, and he was rewarded with the very slightest dip of the muzzle.

However, the Boss’s words were less encouraging. “My only mistake was not shooting both of you straight away,” he asserted belligerently.

Privately, Mark suspected he was right, but he merely shook his head commiseratingly, feeling incongruously like a game show host reacting to a stupidly wrong answer. In the back of his mind, the words ‘stall him’ repeated themselves in a desperate mantra. How much time had already passed? Surely that exchange had taken them to the one minute mark?

“No, that’s not it,” he contradicted, drawing the words out slowly. “You should never have taken him.” He nodded his head in the general direction of the unconscious body behind him, although his stomach crawled at the idea of drawing the Boss’s attention back to his son. 

He didn’t elaborate on the idea, letting the Boss waste precious seconds in asking, but he almost didn’t hear the expected question as his hearing was straining to catch the slightest intimation of impending rescue. 

“Because he’s a cop?” The Boss spat the word out bitterly as if it were an epithet.

“No.” Mark held his gaze steadily. “Because he’s my son.” He watched with a mixture of satisfaction and trepidation as the gunman processed that nugget of information.

The Boss frowned with incomprehension, then as the significance of the relationship dawned, fresh anger distorted his features. “And you?”

“I came to find him,” Mark replied simply, purposefully misunderstanding the question.

“You’re not a cop.” It was a statement.

At this point, Mark would have admitted to being the second gunman on the grassy knoll as long as it took a considerable time to explain why.

“I consult for the department.” The words were accompanied by an almost imperceptible shrug of one shoulder. It seemed a worthwhile idea to develop that theme in detail, so Mark started to expatiate. However, the Boss quickly cut him off.

“I don’t give a damn what kind of deal you have with the cops. You screwed up an operation that was years in the planning and you’re not going to walk away from that. But first, you can watch your son die.”

A surge of protectiveness and a corresponding upthrust of fury whited out any possibility of fear, and Mark’s response was instantaneous. “I’ll kill you first.” 

Those who knew Mark as an amiable, jovial healer would have been surprised by the core of heartfelt intent behind the sentiment. If he had been close enough, the kindly doctor would have wrapped his hands round the other man’s throat in an attempt to fulfill the threat. Luckily, he possessed a more effective form of defense.

“You’re not even armed,” the Boss scoffed.

“Look down.” Mark directed his gaze with a pointing finger.

Just inches away from the gunman’s feet, the knapsack containing the bomb lay nestled against the wall. The Boss recognised the distinctive bag immediately and the obstacle it presented to his plans. He glanced up in baffled fury to see Mark holding out the detonator with implacable meaning. For a frozen moment, silence lay drenched in stillness as possibilities lay fallow, poised on the indecision of mutual annihilation. The quiet proved to be as deceptive as the calm that follows the pin of the grenade being pulled, and the explosion wasn’t long in coming.

Mark sensed the intent in the new tension of the Boss’s muscles and was already moving. A wildly aimed arm sent the flashlight somersaulting through the air to smash in darkness, but before it landed, he’d pressed the detonator and flung himself in front of Steve.

The sheer volume of the blast and ensuing hail of bullets was terrifying in the enclosed space, reverberating viciously in tympanic fury against his ear drums. He wanted to scream, to beat back the auditory assault, but he merely huddled closer to his son, curling himself protectively around him while bracing himself for the bite of a bullet. Steve’s motionless body provided the only grounding in the hellish confusion of shouting and gunfire. 

At what point the welter of discordant sounds continued only as echoes, Mark never knew, but it must have faded in all but memory because suddenly, shockingly, words cut through what he now recognised as silence.

“Dr Sloan?” It was a new voice, containing no trace of the European accent he’d come to hate, yet from whence it came and why it was addressing him was a mystery. 

He sat up, keeping one hand on Steve, the gentle rise and fall of his son’s chest the only reality in a world that was pitch black and febrile, an approximation of the death he’d been expecting.

“Dr. Sloan, are you hurt?” Now he could hear movement -- footsteps, the rustle of cloth -- but the darkness was still impenetrable. As if sensing his dilemma, the voice continued, “I’m going to turn on a light now. You might want to shield your eyes.”

Mark obeyed as his natural resilience started to overcome his state of shock and understanding dawned. Masters’ men had finally arrived. He blinked back the involuntary tears caused by the harsh light that illuminated a room seemingly crowded with armed, uniformed police officers.

A stocky man with night vision glasses pushed up on his head was staring at him intently. “Dr. Sloan, I’m Captain Evers. We’ve secured the area. Can you tell me how badly you’re injured?”

“I’m not,” Mark answered distractedly. “But my son - he needs medical attention now.”

“We’ve got a stretcher on the way for the lieutenant,” Evers reassured him politely, “but I’m also concerned about you since you’re covered in blood.”

“It’s not mine.” Mark’s voice was tight at the memory of attempting to staunch the copious blood flow. 

“Not all of it, maybe,” the SWAT officer observed gently. He gestured at a large splinter protruding from Mark’s forearm which, now its presence was known, began to throb angrily. 

“I thought he’d missed.” Mark looked down at the injury blankly.

“Not by much.” Evers’ flashlight swept behind Mark, revealing a pockmarked wall and the scarred desk from which had come the piece of wood that now decorated his arm.

Mark realised that, as he’d detonated the device, the Boss had jumped back, relying on the doorway to shield him from the bomb that, although strong enough to eviscerate Steve had he been wearing it, was still relatively small. However, the blast of air had clearly blown him off balance or caused the bullets to spray high. It had also deposited the terrorist in the corridor in a position to be taken out by the SWAT team.

Mark couldn’t dwell on the narrowness of that escape. His entire focus was on ensuring that Steve received the care he needed. The medical team that entered to evacuate them were proficient and well-equipped and, to Mark’s relief, were able to insert a saline drip to start the process of replacing the fluids Steve had lost. He refused the offer of transport for himself, choosing instead to walk beside his son, who was carried on a stretcher. They finally exited the building together in the pale light of dawn, and Mark’s knees sagged with relief as he finally allowed himself to believe that they would actually survive.


	11. Chapter 11

Epilogue

Amanda bustled down the corridor, feeling like a mother hen checking on all her straying chicks. At least they were now safe under one roof. She paused at the closed door near the end of the corridor, hoping that, this time, both the occupants would be asleep, then eased the door open. Somewhat to her dismay, Mark, seated next to Steve’s bed, looked up with a weary smile while, a little self-consciously, he removed his hand from where it rested on his son’s arm.

“Hey, how’s Jess?” he greeted her. 

“He’s asleep now, but he woke up long enough to complain that he’d missed all the fun,” she recalled with a fond grin. 

Mark couldn’t restrain a snort of exasperation at the thought that what they had endured the previous night could be considered fun, but there was affection in his eyes as he admitted ruefully, “I miss him. I keep expecting him to come barreling through the door, medical concern flapping in his coat tails. And I wish he would, because there’s no one I’d rather trust Steve’s care to.” 

“It does seem strange to see him lying there so quietly,” Amanda agreed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so still before.”

Amanda could tell from the wistful look that Mark cast at the motionless figure on the bed that he was also applying that sentiment to his son. “How’s he doing?” she asked gently.

Mark’s smile slipped. “He hasn’t come around yet. He’s almost surfaced a couple of times, but he was too feverish to make sense.” Amanda noted that his hand had unconsciously slipped back to rest on his son’s, and she wondered if the reassurance of touch was for himself or Steve. 

It had been a heartbreakingly difficult day for them both as the doctors had struggled to stabilize Steve’s condition, while infection, blood loss and dehydration had sent his fever soaring dangerously high and organ failure had threatened. Now, 24 hours later, the prognosis was favourable as Steve’s resilience and physical strength had carried him through the worst of the crisis. However, Mark looked utterly exhausted, his face as white as the bandage wrapped around his arm. 

“You should go and lie down for a bit,” Amanda suggested sympathetically. “It’s unlikely that he’ll wake any time soon.”

“Thanks, but I’ve tried napping.” Their long friendship and mutual status as parents enabled him to confide in Amanda and, after a deep breath, he continued softly. “Every time I start to doze off, I suddenly jerk awake, unsure what’s the dream and what’s the reality. I just need to watch over him right now.”

“You need to keep him safe.” Amanda nodded understandingly. 

“It’s more of a compulsion than a need right now,” Mark admitted. 

“You can’t help him if you collapse from exhaustion,” she pointed out. “Why don’t you let me watch him while you get some sleep in that chair. I promise I’ll wake you if he so much as twitches.” 

“I appreciate the offer, honey, but that’s not going to help.” She watched him closely as he struggled to find the words to explain. “I really thought I’d lost him this time. When I realised that I’d left him behind to...” His words tumbled out like water flowing over the edge of a waterfall, but then his lips snapped shut on the confession, as if trying to swallow it back, and he lowered his gaze back to his son as a signal that no further confidences would be forthcoming.

“You saved his life,” Amanda reminded him.

The smile she received was shuttered, and she realised he’d retreated back into silence. She knew that Mark’s feelings ran deep but were rarely expressed. 

“How can I help?” she persisted.

“You are helping, honey. Just keep an eye on Jesse. I don’t want him to go through this alone.”

“Well, maybe you don’t want to sleep, but you have to have something to eat,” she insisted practically. She could read the resistance in his expression, but overrode it with determination. “Some soup and crackers would do you the world of good. Nothing too heavy, but you’ll feel a lot better with something in your stomach.”

Common sense told him she was right, so he made no further protest, but his stomach roiled uncomfortably at the thought of food, and he hoped she would keep her word about a little, light snack.

As the door closed behind her, he let his breath out in a long sigh, and his thoughts once more locked into an endless whirl of memories. 

 

Steve’s awakening was a gentle slide to consciousness. His eyes creaked open like doors on rusty hinges as he tried to focus through a fog of drugged confusion. His whole world was smothered in a fuzzy haze, and he couldn’t force his brain to answer the fundamental questions of where he was and why his body ached in that bone-deep, yet painless way that suggested severe injuries controlled by strong analgesics.

The stark blankness in his mind didn’t linger long as his memory came back --not in gentle waves, but in a shattering tsunami of images and sensations that sent him bolt upright in a convulsive jerk. “Dad!”

“I’m right here, son, just relax. We’re both safe now. You’re in a hospital.”

It was his father’s voice, but there was a weariness to it and a mechanicalness of tone that worried as much as reassured, and he twisted against the hands that appeared to be trying to stuff him back into the bed so he could turn and appraise his father. He didn’t like what he saw. “Dad, are you okay?”

The usually clear blue eyes were bloodshot and dulled by fatigue, but the look of surprise in them was almost comical. “Steve, you’re awake!”

“Hey, nothing gets past you doctory types.” The raspy delivery made him aware of the dryness and foul taste in his mouth, and suddenly his father’s arms were supporting him as he coughed weakly.

A cold glass of water materialised in front of him, and he drank gratefully while his father studied him in turn, his inspection a good deal longer and more comprehensive than Steve’s had been. He didn’t bother to explain that they had been through a similar ritual several times that day, but that Steve had fallen back asleep each time without further interaction.

After a few brief sips that seemed to irrigate his mental processes as well as his mouth, Steve was propped back against the pillows while his father watched him with a gimlet eye.

“How’re you feeling?”

Steve blinked with uncertainty. His father never liked his answers to that question. His standard response of ‘I’m fine’ was a little unbelievable under the circumstances, but a more honest response would do nothing to ease the pain that lurked in the dim recesses of Mark’s steady gaze.

He settled for erring on the side of truth but with an attempt at humour to lighten the unpalatable facts. “A bit like someone’s been stomping on me. I don’t suppose you saw someone with big, heavy boots?”

A grimace told him that this was too close to unpleasant memories to be funny, so he tried to divert his father’s attention.

“What happened after I checked out on you?” 

“What was the last thing you remember?” Mark countered.

Steve tried to narrow down somewhat blurry impressions. “You removed the bomb, and we were having a conversation about your career prospects,” he recalled. 

Mark decided that recounting his final encounter with the Boss could wait for a more auspicious time and he skipped to the essentials. “Masters’ team pulled us out.”

He realised that had been too concise, as Steve’s scrutiny sharpened into suspicion and he spotted the dressing on his father’s arm.

“You’re hurt!” he accused, sitting up straighter and frowning in concern.

“It’s just a splinter,” Mark shrugged dismissively. 

“That’s a darn big bandage for just a splinter.”

“It was a big splinter.” There was a familiar and welcome hint of mischief in his father’s eyes. “But that’s all it was, scout’s honour.” 

Steve subsided against the pillows, more reassured by the glimpse of his father’s characteristic humour than his words. “You were never a Boy Scout,” he grumbled. “So what happened? How did they find us? My memory’s a little vague on the details, but I seem to remember they were being led into an ambush. How did you warn them?”

Mark was warmed by the assumption that he had been instrumental in engineering their rescue. “Actually, I didn’t do that much,” he admitted soberly. The memory of the hideous dilemma he’d faced sent tension singing through his body. “I didn’t dare. I knew he’d kill us if his plan succeeded, but I also knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill you if he thought for a second that I had betrayed his plan. I couldn’t risk that, but at the same time I had to try something.”

There was an unspoken plea for understanding in Mark’s haunted expression, and although Steve wasn’t entirely sure why his father needed reassurance on that subject, he hastened to provide it. He gripped the other man’s arm, squeezing it comfortingly. “Well, we’re here, so I would say you played it exactly right.”

The physical connection between them acted like a lightening rod, allowing the worst of Mark’s stress to flow out of him, through his son, then harmlessly to earth. He gave Steve a slightly crooked grin, patting his hand awkwardly before sitting back in his chair and resuming his explanation.

“I could think of a dozen little phrases to use that would clue Masters to the fact that it was a double cross, but the Boss was expecting something like, that and with that gun pointing at your head, I just couldn’t take the risk.”

“So what did you do?” Steve interrupted impatiently. “I could tell you had something up your sleeve, but I didn’t notice anything. Wait!” His eyes widened. “You dropped the phone.”

Mark dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Yes. A little sleight of hand. I hoped that writing the speech down would lull him into a false sense of security while using the small sheets gave me the excuse to juggle with the phone. In doing so, I pressed the ‘6’ key twice.”

“6 key?” Steve asked blankly.

“Yes, it has the letters ‘n’ and ‘o’ on it, spelling out ‘no’. I knew that Masters would be on the alert for the slightest clue and I hoped it would get the message across that what I was saying was false.”

“And Masters picked up on that?” There was a slight note of incredulity in the question.

“Actually, Amanda did. She was there, and she figured out that it was a sign of some sort. They analysed the tape, but it was probably unnecessary. They were watching our movements on infra red. They saw Benak moving around and then, when we moved in the opposite direction to that stated, he sent a team to intercept.”

Steve allowed his eyelids to slide shut, telling himself it was to better absorb the information his father had shared, but in truth, exhaustion tugged at him as relentlessly as gravity and it was just too much of a fight to stay awake.

He wasn’t aware of falling asleep, but when he opened his eyes, there was a tray of food beside his father who was nibbling unenthusiastically on a cracker.

“Sorry, did I drift off?” he asked. He tried to lever himself higher on the pillows, but the painkillers had worn off somewhat in the interim, and he hastily subsided while attempting to look as if he hadn’t just aborted the movement midstream.

Mark’s tipped eyebrow informed him that this subterfuge had been wasted, but the doctor said nothing as he fiddled with the IV. The numbness returned, and Steve’s knotted muscles eased into relaxation before a teasing wisp of memory sent him upright again, this time successfully.

“Did I imagine it, or was the Chief here? I thought I heard his voice.”

“He was here to ‘debrief’ me.” Mark’s hands were busy mutilating his cracker, but Steve could almost see the air quotes around the word. 

“How much trouble am I in?” he asked with resignation.

The question and the concept behind it were so unexpected that Mark gaped at his son for several seconds. Steve’s achievements that night had been almost superhuman, and Masters had clearly been concerned for his officer. Mark was not alone in regarding Steve as a hero; for once, the LAPD agreed with him. A moment’s reflection showed him that his son was focusing exclusively on the latter parts of the night’s events and his perceived failure to stop the gunmen. The misconception was so far removed from reality that Mark wasn’t even sure how to explain the chasm.

For once, Steve totally misread his father’s extended silence. “That bad?” he inquired with a grimace.

“Only if you call the Medal of Valor bad,” Mark answered casually. 

Steve stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

“Hey, you saved the mayor’s life, so I presume you’ll be in his good books for a while.”

“His, maybe, but I doubt if the Chief will regard me with such favour.” It was no secret that Masters’ political ambitions were aimed at governing the city. 

“It wasn’t just the mayor,” Mark explained gently. “You saved a lot of people, including me. And you were instrumental in bringing the perpetrators to justice.”

Steve shifted uneasily. “I can’t take much credit for being trussed up and turned into a walking timebomb.”

“I would have to say you were wrong there. With the bomb, and let’s not forget, the three bullet holes in you, you manage to take Benak down quite successfully. Anyway, that’s how the department sees it.” 

“Masters said that?” There was a wealth of skepticism in Steve’s voice, but also a note of humour as his natural self-confidence reasserted itself.

“Actually, he muttered something about a job well done.” Mark grimaced comically. “He saved his choicest comments for me impersonating a police officer.”

Steve chuckled, imagining that conversation. Mark would have been meek, apologetic and yet, at the same time, totally unrepentant, and it was a combination with which Masters was ill-prepared to cope. “You did an excellent job as a negotiator, which probably annoyed him even more. But how did you know where to find me?”

There was an odd pause, a momentary plunge into silence that chilled Steve with its unexpected depths, but even as he glanced up at his father in concern, Mark started to speak. “Why don’t you start,” he suggested. “I was following in your footsteps, so I have a good idea of what happened to you, but I’d like to fill in the gaps.”

“Okay,” Steve said agreeably and saw a look of something like relief wash over his father’s face before it was schooled to warm interest. There was clearly something bothering Mark, but Steve couldn’t place the emotion in those shadowed eyes - sorrow, guilt? 

In Steve’s opinion, it was totally unfair that his father could pry secrets out of him with a raised eyebrow and a hopeful expression, while Mark’s own reticence was much harder to overcome. It took time and a careful spiraling in on the topic, so, by way of an introduction, Steve obliged by telling his own story. 

He attempted to edit out all accompanying emotions, sticking in best Joe Friday style to the facts. He really didn’t want to relive the horror of that night, but recounting the tale brought back every smoke-encrusted detail. His throat tightened at the memory of those agonised hours of uncertainty with his father’s fate unknown and his own increasingly imperiled. The coughing fit that ensued interrupted his narrative, and for several minutes afterwards, he sipped the cool water Mark had handed him, allowing his composure to return with every breath of clear air, his father’s supportive presence banishing the worst of the nightmares.

“I think that’s enough for now. You need your rest,” Mark decided.

“No!” Steve didn’t want to lose the ground they’d gained, sensing his father would bury whatever was bothering him until it was inaccessible. “I’m feeling fine,” he modified his first over-forceful response. Knowing how that phrase from him lacked credibility, he proved it by launching into a truncated version of his night’s movements. “... and that’s when you sauntered in. After that - well, you probably remember more than I do.”

Mark regarded him steadily, remembering the blood-smeared walls which bore mute testimony to the fact that the journey had not been the easy jaunt Steve described.

“So, what about you?” Steve prompted. “What happened after I left you that last time?”

No one had ever accused Steve of subtlety, and it was clear to Mark that his son had sensed something was bothering his father and had decided to pursue the issue.

Under normal circumstances, Steve accepted Mark’s reticence, never forcing him to verbalise things he’d rather were left unsaid. Words were usually unnecessary between them anyway, the tight bond between them making communication effortless and often silent. Steve pressing the issue now was another facet of his protectiveness. He would only do so if he believed his father needed to talk.

Mark felt that he owed his son the truth even if he wasn’t sure how to express it. “Steve...I’m sorry....it was an accident.” He swallowed hard. “I left you there.”

The statement hung there...four monosyllabic words that did nothing to convey the anguish of that horrific moment of realisation, the memory of which left him breathless with the intensity of his misery.

“Dad, I don’t understand.” Steve’s voice was gentle. “Why don’t you start from the beginning.”

It was supposed to be a simple explanation, but as he progressed, Mark became aware of his son’s reactions. Steve was becoming angry. But Steve didn’t get angry with him. No matter what dumb stunt his father pulled that eroded his son’s standing in the department or undid the work of months, Steve always understood, and Mark realised he’d counted on that same understanding this time.

He faltered, and Steve jumped into the breach.

“I don’t believe this. What were you thinking! You’re telling me you got out of that hellhole and were safe at Community General, and then you re-entered the building?”

He glared at his father, an expression which had hardened criminals volunteering to confess, but Mark was unaffected, fatherhood conferring total immunity.

“Hold on a minute,” he retorted indignantly. “I went back into the building once.” He held up a single finger to emphasise the solitary nature of the number. “You must have gone back at least three times.”

Steve opened his mouth to explain that it was different, but last-minute wisdom dictated he shut it again and he settled on another glare.

“I heard that.” Mark’s accusing tone accompanied his own offended stare.

“I didn’t say anything,” Steve defended himself.

“You didn’t have to. I know what you were thinking.”

The absurdity of the argument suddenly struck him and he started to laugh helpless, almost hysterically. Steve watched him, grinning broadly. “Idiot,” he said affectionately as Mark calmed down.

“Honestly, Dad. I don’t know which was more stupid or more courageous - coming back into a burning, exploding building or walking unarmed into a room of murderous gunmen. But either way, you saved my life. Forget all this ‘leaving’ stuff. You came back for me, and that’s what I’ll always remember.”

Steve lay back against the pillows, suddenly exhausted by the effort of convincing his father of his sincerity. He hated feeling this weak. However, a surreptitious glance at Mark showed him the strain had been worthwhile. His father’s eyes now held peace alongside the weariness that plagued them both.

“You know, Dad,” he continued more playfully. “You didn’t just walk into the lion’s den. You jumped in with both feet and a smile on your face. I thought I was hallucinating at first. At that point, I didn’t even know if you were dead or alive. Of course, after that first relief of knowing you were alive, I was tempted to shoot you myself.” He shook his head in disbelief while fighting back a yawn. “I still can’t believe we survived.”

“We make a good team,” Mark said with satisfaction. 

“Yes, we do.” Steve’s tone mirrored his father’s as his jaw cracked with the effort of restraining another yawn. He roused momentarily to say with utter seriousness. “Just promise me one thing. The next time you want us to go to a black tie affair, we’ll skip it, okay?”

Mark patted his son on the shoulder. “It’s a promise. Now, you need to rest.”

Steve squinted through eyes that again insisted on closing, fighting to maintain focus just a little longer. “You look like hell...go home...sleep.”

“I will,” Mark promised. At some point, anyway, he amended silently, admitting to himself that he was too tired to contemplate leaving his chair. Luckily, it was one procured by Amanda for the specific purpose of lulling him to sleep. Moreover, he was quite content to watch Steve slumbering for a little longer.

His unbounded pride in his son warmed him through his exhaustion as he marveled at the man Steve had become. Despite the soul-eroding damage that he dealt with as a cop on a daily basis, he remained compassionate and selfless with a fine courage that terrified Mark even while it awed him. Yet, whatever his qualities as a police officer, they were eclipsed by his virtues as a son.

Steve’s unquestioning, loyal support provided a foundation that helped sustain the self-confidence with which Mark functioned in the realm of criminal investigation -- as well as in the more mundane aspects of familial life. His son’s companionship in all areas of his life was a joy that he treasured all the more for the precariousness of their lives -- a characteristic especially highlighted by this most recent brush with potential disaster. Jesse had once, early on in their acquaintance, commented enviously on the closeness of the father-son relationship, and that closeness had only increased in the succeeding years.

The next time Amanda peeked through the door, she pumped her arm in the air in silent triumph. Finally, all her friends were asleep. Now she could find a convenient bed, or couch, for herself. She needed her rest -- once they were all back on their feet, who knew what new trouble they would find.

 

DMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD

I am so thrilled with and flattered by the response to this story that it makes it really hard to say that this is, in all likelihood, my last DM story. This has been my very favourite show for more than a decade but with no fresh inspiration it gets harder to write and I think I’ve exhausted all my best plot bunnies. Moreover, I am also forced to admit that I’ve finally got totally hooked on another show and it’s hard to focus on anything but that (e-mail me if you want to know what that is!)

There are so many people that I want to thank. Of course, Nonny first and foremost, my inspiration, instigator, beta and personal cheering squad. None of this would have ever happened without you. To Judith, for your friendship and support, and to the ladies of the Deck who actually considered me a writer. Thanks to all of you who’ve corresponded with me and left me reviews. I am more grateful than I can say, and, who knows, maybe down the road, I’ll return to my first love - Diagnosis Murder.


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